-PTI India will restore 50 lakh hectare of its degraded land by 2030, Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Tuesday. Speaking ahead of the upcoming global conference on land desertification, the minister said 29 per cent land of India’s total geographical area is degraded which has to be restored and will be the agenda of the the summit. India is hosting the Conference of Parties (COP) 14 of the United...

-Down to Earth The IPCC’s Special Report on Climate Change and Land shines a spotlight on food consumption, modern agricultural practices and desertification where serious action has long been deferred Humanity's agricultural tunnel vision has undermined climate equilibrium on a planetary scale, according to the latest report on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released on August 8, 2019. While forestry has long been a focus of carbon sink creation, the report...

-Down to Earth If the world spends even a fraction of the predicted loss, it can reverse land degradation, which affects the poorest the most The world will lose $23 trillion by 2050 due to land degradation, warns a United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) review. In comparison, only US $4.6 trillion, a fraction of the predicted losses, will be required to rectify what is one of the biggest threats...

Situation alarming: More than one-third population hit by drought   The country is facing severe drought for the second consecutive year. Conservative estimates from official sources show that over a quarter of rural habitations are facing drinking water scarcity. Although both India Meteorological Department and Skymet have predicted a more than normal rainfall during June-September, 2016, the water storage available in 91 major reservoirs of the country has declined from 22 percent...

As the challenge of global warming looms large, the importance of climate resilient agriculture (CRA) gets recognized by both scientific and farming communities. Countries like India are expected to be intensely affected by climate change since majority of the population is primarily dependent on agriculture for livelihood. CRA, encompassing adaptation and mitigation strategies and the effective use of biodiversity at all levels-genes, species and ecosystems-should, therefore, be India's response towards...