-FoodFirst.org NEW YORK CITY-Five innovative grassroots groups from across the globe working for democratic access to land, seeds, water and food have been honored with the 2013 Food Sovereignty Prize, the US Food Sovereignty Alliance announced today. Winners of the fifth annual Food Sovereignty Prize were chosen from among more than 40 inspiring projects creating on-the-ground solutions to hunger and poverty, said the alliance, a network of food justice, anti-hunger, labor, environmental,...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com Kozhikode: Dubai's agriculture minister recently chartered a flight to Kozhikode and, accompanied by a horticulture consultant, headed to the Agriculture Research Station (ARS) at Anakkayam nearby. There the minister, Abdulla Jassim Abdulla M Almarzooqi, placed orders for fruits, spices and ornamental plants. But on his mind was something bigger. He offered free visas and air tickets to the 100 members of the research station's agricultural army, which rather grandly goes...

-The Hindu In a region of poor yields, a gritty woman farmer succeeds even in years of crop failure. But high costs are depleting Vidarbha's success stories "I am the farmer, he did no farming. He only moons over his cattle, he loves those cows (even if they yield just a litre of milk each). Men hang around the village, women are in the fields." Leelabai is speaking of one of Yavatmal's most...

-Frontline Professor Sukhpal Singh, a faculty member of the Centre for Management of Agriculture at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, has been researching and documenting the process of contract farming and food supply chains in India for more than a decade. He is of the view that the small farmer is being excluded in the method currently in place, which defeats the very purpose of improving Indian agriculture. Sukhpal Singh,...

-Down to Earth A Sehore farmer finds a unique pigeon pea variety that bears pods three to four times in a row When their two soybean crops failed in two consecutive years, farmer Raj Kumar Rathore tried to convince his parents to experiment with other crops. But it only angered them. They were not ready to give up farming the traditional crop of Madhya Pradesh's Sehore district. He was ousted from the...