-The Indian Express If we truly want to ensure the livelihoods of our farmers and provide safe, healthy, nutritious food for our consumers, it is imperative to make policies that go beyond the productivity trope and populist posturing. Proponents of the three new farm laws have claimed that they will engender competition in agricultural markets and will give farmers a choice to sell wherever they like. The opponents of these laws, including...

-Press release by Vikalp Sangam (vikalpsangam.org), dated 5th December, 2020 Vikalp Sangam (vikalpsangam.org) -- a conglomeration of 60+ active CSOs and members -- in its press release dated 5th December, 2020 has stated that the newly enacted farm laws of the Centre will lead to further land alienation (landlessness) and destitution of the peasantry because the laws permit, in thinly disguised form, the unsparing loot by the lobby of agri-businesses and...

-Press release by Network of Rural and Agrarian Studies (NRAS), dated 30th November, 2020 The “State of Rural and Agrarian India Report 2020” was released by Dr. V Ramgopal Rao, Director, IIT Delhi today in an online webinar organised by the Network of Rural and Agrarian Studies (NRAS). This report is being brought out by the NRAS, which is a pan-India network of scholars, researchers, practitioners, farmers, students, and activists engaged...

A report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), which was released on July 6th (observed as World Zoonoses Day by research institutions and non-governmental organisations across the globe) this year, says that around 60 percent of known infectious diseases in humans are estimated to have an animal origin. Likewise, almost three-fourth of all new and emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic i.e. these diseases...

-Down to Earth The food most associated with biodiversity loss also tends to also be connected to unhealthy diets across the globe As the global population has doubled to 7.8 billion in about 50 years, industrial agriculture has increased the output from fields and farms to feed humanity. One of the negative outcomes of this transformation has been the extreme simplification of ecological systems, with complex multi-functional landscapes converted to vast swaths...