CEOs need to accelerate their action plans to safeguard the production of commodities critical to the global population and economy as heat stress and drought risk rise around the world, according to PwC's report, Climate Risks to Nine Key Commodities: Protecting People and Prosperity, published. The report, which analysed nine …
Investments aimed at improving agricultural adaptation to climate change inevitably favor some crops and regions over others. An analysis of climate risks for crops in 12 food-insecure regions was conducted to identify adaptation priorities, based on statistical crop models and climate projections for 2030 from 20 general circulation models.
As the world warms, the plants that billions of people depend on for their food are likely to become less nutritious. That's the worrying conclusion of an analysis of more than 40 studies investigating how crops will react to increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
This article discusses the acute and chronic health effects of pesticide exposure among Filipino rice farmers. Data were collected from 50 farmers during 2002 and 2003 using a semi-structured questionnaire to elicit demographic information, various aspects of farming life, types and extent of pesticide use, exposure means, and self-reported acute …
'Sella' rice plant effluent is one of the major environmental pollutants. The physico-chemical characterization of effluent collected from three 'Sella' rice plants revealed that the pH of the effluent varied from 6.9-7.4 and effluent was yellow brown in colour and turbid.
In recent decades, the introduction of fertilizer and irrigation responsive high yielding dwarf varieties of rice have resulted in more widespread and intensive use of chemical fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides. The indiscriminate use of such chemical agents led to a wide array of problems and has forced mankind to consider …
In Bangladesh, the first Farmer Field Schools were organised in the early 1990s, assisted by the FAO inter-country programme for IPM in rice. After initial positive experiences, several other donors (UNDP, CARE-Bangladesh and DANIDA) started projects to spread IPM to hundreds of thousands of farmers through IPM Farmer Field Schools. …
A German ornithologist reported that a single pair of Tits destroys, annually, at least 120 million insect eggs or 150000 caterpillars and pupae. The contribution of birds in controlling and managing insect pests in agricultural crops has not been recognized by farmers as well as agricultural scientists in general. Birds …
bithari village, Swarupnagar block, North 24-Paraganas: the men of Uttarpara hamlet in Bithari are hiding out in the fields every night despite the winter chill in the air. Better brave the cold than the police lock-up, they say. This remote village near the Bangladesh border is one of the many …
Decline of the Kerala PDS Until a decade ago, owning a ration shop in Kerala was a status symbol. Abdul Rehman, a retail ration dealer for more than two decades, always enjoyed a special status in Ambayathode village of Kozhikode district, with over 1,700 ration card holders on his roll. …
despite the two recent floods which forced farmers to plant seedlings late, Bangladesh has achieved season's target of cultivation of paddy on 5.3 million hectares, say officials. In August and September, the country faced two massive floods which affected two-thirds of its land, especially in the central districts around greater …
the Union government increased the minimum support price of wheat, paddy, sugarcane, mustard, rapeseed and other agricultural commodities on October 9. The announcement was made after the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the prime minister, accepted the recommendations on the minimum support price (msp) by the Commission of …
more rice varieties will soon wear the basmati tag in India. The draft definition of basmati by the Union government has sparked a debate over whether new and evolved varieties should be allowed in place of traditional varieties. While only six traditional varieties are now called basmati, the draft of …
Agriculture in India is subject to variety of risks arising from rainfall aberrations, temperature fluctuations, hailstorms, cyclones, floods and climate change. These risks are exacerbated by price fluctuation, weak rural infrastructure, imperfect markets and lack of financial services including limited span and design of risk mitigation instruments such as credit …
conventional scientific wisdom has it that irrigation works against global warming. But there is evidence now to shake us out of complacency. Scientists from the University of California, Merced, have shown that irrigated fields have their limits in masking effects of greenhouse gas emissions. Specially, when land under agriculture isn't …
Mizoram has recently sought central aid to check the fallout of an increasing rodent population in the state. The state disaster management and rehabilitation department (dmrd) recently submitted a memorandum to an inter-ministerial central team led by u k s Chauhan, joint secretary of agriculture. Following the gregarious flowering of …
the ban on futures trading in essential commodities is likely to be lifted. The expert committee under Abhijit Sen backs the idea. The committee was set up in March 2007 to assess the impact of futures trading
Rice and wheat are the two most important staple crops, which play a critical role in food security in India. The paper attempts to analyze the changing pattern of foodgrain production system and derive certain policy interventions in view of its relative importance in achieving avowed growth rates envisaged in …
There was a time when it was said that the Indian budget was a gamble on the monsoons. That is not the case any more, with industrial production soaring and agriculture on the margins. But what is clear is that without addressing the problems of the majority of farmers in …
