The Planning Commission has offered an objective assessment of the unsatisfactory situation as far as Indian agriculture is concerned in its mid-term appraisal of the 11th Five-Year Plan. The commission has done well to remind us that the farm sector is still subject to strangulating controls that dissuade private investment in key areas, including logistics and storage. The government’s agricultural pricing policies, which have rendered minimum support prices (MSPs) the...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Coming water shortage
India could face a massive 50% water deficit by 2030, the biggest globally, says the recent report of the Water Resources Group (WRG). Fortunately, the supply-demand gap could well be filled, with vision, proactive policy and only modestly higher sectoral outlays, it adds. The WRG, consisting of a panel of global experts, estimates the ‘water availability cost curve’ to meet the heightened demand at about $5.9 billion per annum, or...
More »Himalayas melting faster than the global average
The melting of Himalayan glaciers has been a bone of contention between international environmentalists and the Government of India. The government believes that some perceptions of the international environmentalists are alarmist. Now a new global report has sought to set aside that controversy by measuring the rate at which the Himalayan glaciers are melting. (The report enclosed below) The Himalayan glaciers are melting faster than the global average and the rate...
More »Climate change threatening survival of Himalayan communities – UN report
Climate change is posing a serious threat to communities in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region, bringing both drought and catastrophic floods to hundreds of millions of people, according to a new United Nations-backed report. Food security, housing, infrastructure, business and even the survival of people living in mountainous regions and their neighbours in river basins downstream in the region are extremely vulnerable to climate change, it said. The publication was launched...
More »Put agriculture high on agenda by William D Dar
The G8 countries have promised to increase the spending on agricultural development by $20 billion over the next three years. The amount is woefully less than the $44 billion that will be needed each year to end malnutrition. At the world leaders’ meeting in Copenhagen, it is imperative that governments pledge to adopt up-to-date technologies to boost food production as well as outweigh the negative impacts of climate change. A...
More »