-Financial Chronicle The United Nations declared 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) to recognise the importance of family farming in reducing poverty and improving global food security. According to the UN, the IYFF aims to promote new development policies at national and regional levels that will help small holder and family farmers eradicate hunger through small scale sustainable agricultural production. Family farming involves about 500 million families consisting...

-Down to Earth The fracas over India's refusal to meet the deadline on trade facilitation exposes rich nations' double standards NOTHING HAS exposed the double standards at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) than the current uproar over the implementation of two agreements at the global trade policing organisation. One, termed Public Stockholding for Food Security Purposes, protects the food security concerns of millions of the poor and the Livelihood of millions of...

-The Hindu Chennai: The Tamil Nadu model of providing primacy to the views of farmers in the management of irrigation tanks has been lauded by an official of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), who is heading a team to review tank projects in India. Conventionally, the tank management has been governed by the water engineering-centric approach. But, in Tamil Nadu, "the focus is on farmers, their needs. And, that's the way...

-i9media When tourism alone couldn't achieve the desired growth, modernisation of agriculture was adopted and thus the district of Umaria in Madhya Pradesh was able to achieve prosperity. Madhya Pradesh has been continuously drawing attention of other states because of its agricultural growth in recent years. Some of its districts, which used to have very low productivity, are now contributing significantly in the agricultural development. Umaria is one such district where agriculture...

-The Hindu The government deserves congratulations for its firm stand at the WTO, which finds support in Rodrik's trilemma The Princeton don Dani Rodrik is one of the world's leading economists. He is a firm believer in and supporter of globalisation. However, he has also posed a famous "globalisation trilemma." A trilemma describes a situation where only two of three things can hold true at the same time. If any two out...