In a report released on January 30, and covered by the world’s press the next day, the United Nations has warned of a severe resource crisis that would overtake the world if current trends persist. A growing population and a rise in the number of middle-class consumers will increase the demand for resources so rapidly that even by 2030 the world will need at least 50 per cent more food,...

-The Hindu   Noted Jaipur-based economist V. S. Vyas has expressed concern over “progressive diminution” of cultivated holdings which he says has led to stagnation in the yield of major crops and rendered agricultural income insufficient for farmers to make ends meet. A sharp decline was also being witnessed in per capita food production, he said. Delivering the Tarlok Singh Memorial Lecture at the University of Hyderabad over the weekend, Professor Vyas said...

Ensuring food security to all is one of India’s top policy agendas today. Given a large mass of poverty in the country, it is not surprising and no one would perhaps disagree with the need to achieve this as soon as possible. But the varied policy instruments that can be used towards achieving this goal draw sharp differences among the stakeholders. What is food security? The World Food Summit of 1996...

In August last year, Maruti was one of the two case studies presented at a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) seminar on contract labour for the way the automobile company had “engaged with its contract labour”. It is ironic that less than a year later, the company is in the middle of an indefinite strike by 800 of its workers who are demanding a permanent absorption of contract workers at the...

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) recently in New Delhi, India gathered more than 900 participants for an international conference to examine ways that agriculture can enhance the health and nutritional status of poor people in developing worlds. Scholars, Politicians and activists during the conference tried to exploit the nexus between agriculture, nutrition and health. Most people would say that agriculture is for growing food, and on one level, they are...