Liberalisation of agricultural trade has worsened food security of South Asia, a study says. The report by Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Centre (MHHDC), an Islamabad-based research organisation also found that farm trade liberalisation increased the number of hungry people by 28.8 million. Private research organisation, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), organised launching of the report, 'Human Development in South Asia - 2009: Trade and Human Development' in Dhaka on Thursday. The...

The case of the Food Security Bill gets curiouser and curiouser.  What started off as a fight between universalization and targeting has ended (or so it would seem) in a complete victory in the National Advisory Council, Government of India (NAC) for targeting through universalization (if such a thing was possible), with the honourable exception of Prof Jean Dreze, who has to be commended for his ‘note of disagreement’. On...

Union Minister of State for Agriculture K V Thomas today said impact of climate change on agriculture in India would be "far reaching" as a major chunk of population is dependent on it. "Due to high percentage of population dependent on agriculture, excessive pressure on natural resources and lack of fast alternatives, the impact of climate change on agriculture will be far reaching in the country," he said, inaugurating an...

After creating a huge controversy by claiming that foreign patients who were treated in India developed antibiotic resistance, authors of the superbug New Delhi metallo-B-lactamase-1 (NDM-1) bacteria study published in the United Kingdom-based medical journal The Lancet now say that poor sanitation and unregulated antibiotic use presented an immense challenge and should be of great concern to the Indian health authorities and the World Health Organisation. Responding to queries in the...

The genetic diversity of the plants that we grow and eat and their “wild relatives” could be lost forever, threatening future food security, unless special efforts are stepped up to not only conserve but also utilize them, especially in developing countries. This is one of the key messages of the second report on The State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, launched today by FAO.   The...