The government has decided to throw its might behind private purchases of farm land overseas to ensure food security for India. The agriculture ministry has sought views from other ministries on an institutional mechanism to extend sovereign support to India Inc's acquisition of farm land abroad that could include guaranteed buyback of harvest from the cultivation overseas. Agriculture secretary PK Basu said that the proposal is in a nascent stage. "We had...
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Climate Change threat to food produce in India, says study by Indrajit Bose
'Erratic rainfall and rising input costs forcing farmers to migrate' “Unable to clear a loan of Rs 2 lakh, my son committed suicide. I had to sell my ancestral house and cattle to repay the loan,” says Lakshmi Devi, 48, of Pathakotha Cheruvu village in Andhra Pradesh’s Anantapur district. Devi's woes did not end with the repayment of loan. Managing her farm is becoming increasingly difficult, partly because it is expensive,...
More »Dwindling Resources Trigger Global Land Rush by Stephen Leahy
A global scramble for land and mineral resources fuelled by billions of investment dollars is threatening the last remaining wilderness and critical ecosystems, destroying communities and contaminating huge volumes of fresh water, warned environmental groups in London Wednesday. No national park, delicate ecosystem or community is off limits in the voracious hunt for valuable metals, minerals and fossil fuels, said the Gaia Foundation’s report, "Opening Pandora's Box". The intensity of the...
More »Indian echo in Gates thrust by Meghdeep Bhattacharyya
Microsoft founder Bill Gates has criticised UN agencies like the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) for not doing enough to fight hunger and poverty. “Countries, food agencies and donors aren’t working together in a focused and co-ordinated way to provide the help small farmers need, when they need it,” Gates told the governing council of the IFAD in...
More »Dr Abhijit Sen, Member-Planning Commission of India, interviewed by Ajay Vir Jakhar and Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
Dr Abhijit Sen is Member, Planning Commission of India. He is a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Cambridge (currently on leave as Professor of Economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University) and has also taught at the Universities of Sussex, Oxford and Cambridge. Besides serving various think tanks in the states and at the centre, Dr Sen has been a consultant with UNDP, ILO, FAO and various other multilateral...
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