The World Food and Agriculture – Statistical Yearbook 2022, released in December 2022, provides its readers a plethora of useful statistics and data across the countries pertaining to agriculture and food security. The yearbook by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) primarily covers four themes -- Economic Dimensions of Agriculture; Production, Trade and Prices of Commodities; Food Security and Nutrition; and Sustainability and Environmental Aspects of Agriculture.  While going through the report,...

-The Telegraph Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav underscores importance of subsidies and pesticides in agriculture in developing countries New Delhi: India has opposed global targets to reduce subsidies and pesticides in agriculture for the sake of biodiversity, asserting that farming provides livelihood to millions in developing countries and that countries should be allowed to determine their national goals. The Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav, delivering India’s national statement at the UN Convention on...

-Deccan Herald One of the proposals under debate at Montreal is a call for slashing harmful subsidies by at least $500 billion annually from the estimated $ 1.8 trillion India has sought more public finance to protect its biodiversity and strongly opposed proposals to reduce subsidies on fertilisers and pesticides for the sake of biodiversity, asserting that the livelihood of hundreds of millions of farmers in the developing world depend on farming.  “Our...

-India Spend India's transition to sustainable farming has to be calibrated and orchestrated well, drawing lessons from the successes of India's Green Revolution and the recent crisis in Sri Lanka, says sustainable farming expert P.S. Vijayshankar Bengaluru: The production-centric intensive agriculture brought about by India's Green Revolution in the 1960s, using high-yielding seeds, fertilisers and high levels of groundwater utilisation, helped India achieve food self-sufficiency by the 1970s, but has created a...

-The Telegraph Demand for sustainable or organic cotton on the rise, providing an opportunity for the country to excel A few years ago, images of the drying up of the eastern bed of the Aral Sea had shocked millions. It was linked to the widespread growing of unsustainable cotton, backed by the Uzbekistan government, to pocket greater forex earnings and satiate the demands of the global fashion industry. The demand for sustainable...