-The United Nations Cooperatives and producer organizations will be increasingly important in efforts to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today. “FAO needs strong cooperatives and producer organizations as key partners in the effort to eliminate hunger for some 925 million people, and to respond to the many challenges that face our world today,” said Director-General José Graziano da Silva. He told...

Indigenous knowledge and farming practices of the region's tribal people recognised for promoting food security and conserving biodiversity Traditional farming systems in India have received a major boost at a time when Indian agriculture is struggling to come to terms with modern technologies. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has accorded the status of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) to the traditional agricultural system being practiced...

U.P.'s GDP grew at 7.28 per cent in the past five years, but the State ranks low in virtually every area of socio-economic development. IF statistics on gross domestic product (GDP) are the only criteria to evaluate the performance of a government, the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government in Uttar Pradesh will have to be rated as one with highly impressive credentials. For, India's most populous State has recorded a...

While the government may be finding it difficult to get its FDI in multi-brand retail pass the test of Parliament, India Inc has been pledging huge investments in wholesale and retail trade abroad, including in countries like the US and the UK.   In the 2010-11 fiscal, investments of Indian companies in wholesale and retail trade overseas went up 78% as compared to the previous year - up from $1,052 million in...

-The Telegraph   The mass mortality of fish in the Karala river has blown the lid off a toxic secret: poison is used to kill some of the catch that makes its way to several homes in Bengal. In the face of raids by officials to seize dead fish in Jalpaiguri, some fishermen today admitted that they use a pesticide called Thiodan to kill fish that are eventually sold in the markets. Lab tests...