The right to food has gained significant recognition in Africa, Asia, Latin America and South Asia, but more national institutional reforms are needed to ensure that the fight against hunger is rooted in legal mechanisms, a United Nations expert has said. “Boosting food production should not be confused with realizing the human right to food,” said Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food. “If the international...

This is a story of a bunch of gritty women in a small Andhra village who used their traditional resources and knowledge to fight poverty and create a source of livelihoods for others. A group of 34 women, most of them illiterate, at village Pyalayaram, which falls in Deccan region of Zaheerabad mandal in the state of Andhra Pradesh.decided to set up a community grain bank with a little help...

"India lives in several centuries at the same time. Somehow we manage to progress and regress simultaneously." Arundhati Roy Controversies, protests and violence have marred land acquisition for projects in India. Protests against acquiring agricultural land, inappropriate compensation or environmental impact have been the main reasons for these protests. In most cases, the protests are by farmers who are hardly compensated after their fertile agricultural land is taken over in for...

If you’ve ever bought land, chances are you have a Rolodex of ownership documents, and even that isn’t conclusive proof. The land registry is not sacrosanct; the sale deed — even if registered — isn’t endorsed by the government. If disputes break out, and they frequently do, there is no single ownership document. The only way to do that is to fight a lengthy court battle, spend cash on lawyers,...

Depletion of ground water in Punjab and elsewhere cannot continue, says Abhijit Sen  ‘…The agriculture sector remained much more devoid of knowledge than any other…' Necessary to increase investment in research due to scarcity of natural resources At a time when agriculture growth is projected at 5 per cent for 2010-11 based on predictions of a normal monsoon, Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen says that “unless the sector delivers incomes to farmers,...