-Deccan Herald In accordance with a new agroecology initiative within the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, by using the agroecological methods, small farmers are key to feeding the world, Nafeez Ahmed notes. Modern industrial agricultural methods can no longer feed the world, due to the impacts of overlapping environmental and ecological crises linked to land, water and resource availability. The stark warning comes from the new United Nations Special Rapporteur on the...

-The Indian Express This July, I spoke with a farmer in Angul district, Odisha. During the kharif season, most of his 45-acre farm is devoted to paddy, but during the rabi season, he grows a variety of pulses, oilseeds and vegetables. He is currently president of the village watershed committee, working to implement an impressive programme to halt soil erosion and water runoff. He pointed out newly constructed contour and farm...

-CNN-IBN Kerala: Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme had helped women improve their social and economic status, according to a study by a university. The study by the Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS) showed that 97.3% of workers under the scheme are women. Conducted as part of a project on Impact Assessment Study of MGNREG scheme in Alappuzha District, the study was funded by Kerala State Institute of Rural...

-The Hindu Puducherry (Tamil Nadu): S. Janaki, a farmer, laughs when she says she is unsure of what to do with the extra time that she now has. "Earlier, I used to have back problems because of the tiring labour involved in paddy cultivation. Now, I find working in the field much easier and that it involves lesser time," she adds. Janaki is among a group of 15 farmers in Vinayagampet village...

-GRIST Media If hard work and enterprise inevitably made you prosperous, every rural woman would be a millionaire. These women have borne the brunt of the radical, often brutal transformation of rural India these past two decades. Our writers examine the hardships they continue to face as well as their remarkable vision to solve some of the greatest problems of our times such as food security, environmental justice and developing a...