Small and marginal farmers practising agriculture on rain-fed farms will bear the brunt of climate change
The apex global health body reckons that about 150,000 deaths occur annually in low-income countries due to the adverse effects of climate change, chiefly malnutrition due to climate change-driven crop failures, stomach diseases and malaria.
An acute shortage of healthy seeding materials for horticulture requires redrafting of the Seeds Bill, 2004.
The business models developed to help farmers realise better returns are facing several hurdles, says Surinder Sud.
The cold wave and intense fog across the northern states are deemed beneficial for the rabi crops, notably the main cereal, wheat.
The cold wave and intense fog across the northern states are deemed beneficial for the rabi crops, notably the main cereal, wheat. Agricultural experts have, however, advised farmers to protect oilseeds and vegetable crops against a possible damage from frost, which may ensue when the fog lifts.
A national network project, run by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research since 2004, carried out to study the impact of climate change on Indian agriculture, is also throwing some light on the complex inter-relation between CO2, global warming and crop productivity.
The total water stock in the country's 81 major reservoirs is still 57 per cent of their live storage capacity, falling 12 per cent short of the normal level for this time. This is a cause for concern for both irrigation and hydro power production.
WHO says the regulatory procedures in place for the licencing of pandemic vaccines, including procedures for expediting regulatory approval, are rigorous and do not compromise safety or quality.
There have been good crops in years of poor rain and huge variations in years which have had similar rain.
The latest estimates of global hunger, released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), have projected the number of people going hungry every day to swell to the historic high of 1.02 billion in 2009. Almost all of them, barring a small fraction, will be in the developing countries.
The overall deficiency in the cumulative monsoon rainfall since the beginning of the season has shrunk from about 46 per cent in the end of June to 24 per cent by July 16. The key agricultural belt of north-western India is still facing about 44 per cent rainfall deficiency, though there have been some welcome showers throughout the region in the past couple of weeks. The north-eastern region is also facing about 40 per cent rain deficieny.
The monsoon situation and its consequences for different sectors of economy was reviewed in a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 12.
The NRAA was set up to do precisely this in rain-fed areas, but inter-ministerial wrangling ensured this didn't happen.
The prolonged break in the rainy season that has caused widespread concern over the delay in kharif sowing is finally ending with the monsoon likely to advance into Mumbai and adjoining parts of Maharashtra in two or three days.
Even as the threat of swine flu continues, a fresh outbreak of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (bird flu) has been reported from West Bengal.About 20 backyard poultry birds were reported to have died on May 20 in the rural areas of Uttar Dinajpur in West Bengal, not far from the Assam and Bangladesh border.These birds were confirmed on May 25 to have died of the most virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu.
Even as the prices of food items in the international market dropped sharply from their peak in 2008 in response to higher global stocks and improved export supplies, food prices in most of the developing countries have defied this trend and remain high.
Increased investment in forestry could provide jobs in areas such as forest management and agro-forestry, improved management of forest fires, development and management of tracking trails and recreation sites in forests, expansion of urban green spaces, restoration of degraded forests and planting new ones. Such activities could be tailored to local circumstances like the availability of labour, skill levels among population and social, economic and ecological conditions.
A global food policy think tank has mooted a two-pronged strategy to avert recurrence of such situations. The proposed strategy involves the creation of a small physical stock of food and putting in place a mechanism for market intelligence-based intervention in food markets to discourage speculation. It rules out building a significant physical publicly held and managed world grain reserve.
The GHG emissions from the forestry and agriculture account for over 30 per cent of the current annual total emissions. Of this, nearly 17.4 per cent emissions emanate from deforestation and forest degradation and 13.5 per cent from agriculture. Where individual GHGs are concerned, about 50 per cent of the total methane releases come from the farm sector, basically from the paddy fields and livestock.
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