“Governments and international agencies urgently need to boost ecological farming techniques to increase food production and save the climate,” said UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, while presenting the findings at an international meeting on agroecology held in Brussels on 21 and 22 June. Along with 25 of the world’s most renowned experts on agroecology, the UN expert urged the international community to re-think current agricultural...

The residents of the border district, who have witnessed destruction and uprooting time and again due to flooding of the Sutlej and Indo-Pak wars, face a challenge to their lives once again and this time it is from chemically infested vegetables. Consumption of such vegetables, which are being grown in various parts of the district, has made the residents’ lives worse. The menace connected with the injection of various chemicals into...

The revolution of the 1960s saved decades worth of greenhouse gas emissions. The Green Revolution of the 1960s raised crop yields and cut hunger — and also saved decades worth of greenhouse gas emissions, a study concludes. U.S. researchers found cumulative global emissions since 1850 would have been one third as much again without the Green Revolution's higher yields. Although modern farming uses more energy and chemicals, much less land needs...

Did the Indian government guarantee Dow Chemicals, the parent company of Union Carbide, that it will not be held liable for the Bhopal gas tragedy? An RTI response has raised fresh questions over the government's position in the case, as it brought to light a letter written in 2006 by Dow Chemicals CEO Andrew Liveris to the then Indian Ambassador to the US Ronen Sen, claiming that the Indian government...

Kinnauri rajmash, chilgoza (pinus gerardiana), walnut and dried apricots have always been in high demand and commanded a competitive price in the market, but connecting them with the concept of organic food has yielded high premiums for farmers in the state. Himalayan Organisation for Organic Agri Products (HIMOARD), based at Rampur in Shimla, has brought international recognition for these farm products of the tribal district of Kinnaur in Himachal Pradesh....