In India, agriculture and allied sector is the source of income for over 60% of rural population and its contribution to GDP has been consistently coming down and currently stands at 14.3%.  For the Indian economy to grow at the rate of 8-9%, the growth rate of agriculture sector has to be more than 4%. The critical role of agriculture in the economy highlights the need for a larger investment in...

Decades after peasants’ networks have advocated for a new legal instrument to protect the rights of small farmers to land, seeds, traditional agricultural knowledge and freedom to determine the prices of their production, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) may decide to start drafting a declaration on peasants’ rights next week. "The idea of an international declaration on peasants' rights comes from our (base) because many small farmers don’t have...

Parliament must use budget session to discuss key pending bills The budget session of Parliament begins today. The last few sessions have been characterised by disruptions and consequent loss of productive time. To see one indicator, the 15th Lok Sabha, half-way through its term, has lost 30 per cent of scheduled time — the worst ever. As a result, many important bills have been pending. It is to be seen whether...

-The Economic Times After emerging as one of the pioneers in the investment regions of petroleum products and information technology, Andhra Pradesh is now weighing the benefits of promoting an Agribusiness Investment Region (ABIR) involving major agri clusters in three of its geopolitical regions.  The proposed ABIR project in Andhra Pradesh, to be taken up in a public private partnership (PPP) model, involves setting up an integrated infrastructure for rural business and...

-The United Nations Globalized food systems and the spread of Western lifestyles has spawned an international public health disaster with over a billion people suffering from undernourishment while another billion remain overweight or obese, an independent United Nations expert warned today. “Our food systems create sick people,” said Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, as he presented his latest report to the UN Human Rights Council...