Full Coverage: Agriculture

31.05.2005 Près du dixième de la population mondiale consommerait des aliments produits en utilisant des eaux usées. Étant donné la croissance démographique et le fait que davantage d’eau douce est détournée vers les villes pour la consommation domestique — dont 70 % repart en eaux usées —, le recours aux eaux usées est appelé à augmenter, tant en volumes qu’en superficies irriguées.

27.05.2005 The appointment of Pascal Lamy as head of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) could be bad news for campaigners seeking support for radical reform of European agriculture subsidies. A more sympathetic candidate might have emerged if developing countries had worked together more closely in the selection process.

27.05.2005 The 2nd National Conference on Pulses and Related Industries – 2005 is taking place on August 21 in New Delhi. The theme for this year's event will be the Indian Pulses Industry – Key Issues and Future Challenges.

26.05.2005 The Indian government's Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has withheld licenses for commercial cultivation on three varieties of genetically modified (GM) cotton developed by US firm Monsanto - Mech-12 Bt, Mech-162 Bt and Mech-184 Bt after a persistant campaign by Indian organisations.

24.05.2005 Indian NGOs working on environment and issues related to genetically modified organisms (GMO) have written a letter to the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, government of India over policies governing genetic crops. Read the full letter.

23.05.2005 Declining food production in Southern Africa has shifted the region's focus to improving small-scale farmers' access to agricultural inputs like fertilisers.

19.05.2005 A senior official from the International Food Policy Research Institute argues strongly that African countries which do not facilitate the introduction of GM crops are failing the urgent needs of their people.

19.05.2005 Due to outstanding public and Senatorial opposition, Steven Johnson, the nominated EPA Administrator, canceled the intentional pesticide exposure study using babies as subjects. Titled CHEERS, this study, partially funded by the pesticide industry, was slated to use children aged 0-3 as test subjects.

18.05.2005 The UPA government in India, which is about to complete one year in office, had decided to celebrate its birthday by announcing a massive investment of Rs 1,74,000 crore to renew and strengthen rural infrastructure.

18.05.2005 The first coordination meeting of the Working Groups on Food Safety, Veterinarian Sciences and Phito-sanitary Supervision was held at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, in accordance with the decision of the Croatian Government to appoint National Delegation for Negotiations on Croatian accession to the EU.

17.05.2005 Lennart Båge, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), inaugurated the hub of ten different rural knowledge centres and a community radio station on May 12 in the village of Pillayarkuppam in Pondicherry.

17.05.2005 Lennart Båge, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), inaugurated the hub of ten different rural knowledge centres and a community radio station on May 12 in the village of Pillayarkuppam in Pondicherry.

17.05.2005 UK-based non governmental organisation Christian Aid has released a report saying that the free trade policies being imposed by the West and by multilateral donor agencies have wreaked havoc on poor communities. The report - The Damage Done: Aid, Death and Dogma - gives the examples of farmers suicides in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh as having being hit by reforms.

16.05.2005 From farm to plate, the modern food system relies heavily on cheap oil. Threats to our oil supply also threaten our food supply. Although agriculture is increasingly more energy efficient, as food undergoes more processing and travels farther the amount of energy consumed between the farm gate and the kitchen table continues to rise.

12.05.2005 En France, nous en sommes à la cinquième Quinzaine du commerce équitable. Du 30 avril au 15 mai 2005, cela se fait sous le signe de la femme. Dans plus de 40 villes, Artisans du Monde se mobilise autour de la thématique Femmes et commerce équitable.

12.05.2005 Nearly 9.5 million people in south Asia and the Pacific are working as forced labor, which is a whopping 77 per cent of the global forced labor estimated at 12.3 million people, says a new International Labour Office (ILO) report. Of these figures India has the maximum number of people being exploited economically and working under coercion in rice-mills, domestic service, brick kilns, fields and sericulture. Rahul Kumar reports from New Delhi.

12.05.2005 North Korea's food shortages that led to famine during the 1990s persist today, with over six million still facing hunger. A new report examines how North Korea's pursuit for economic and agricultural self-sufficiency--rooted in the country's history of occupation and isolation--is shortsighted, calling on the international community to avoid worsening the situation by isolating, vilifying, or exploiting the country.

11.05.2005 One of the by-products of the AIDS epidemic sweeping many African nations is the loss of knowledge; for example, with no one to teach them, rural children orphaned at a young age might never learn to farm. But the UN agricultural agency is now taking many of these children under its wings, teaching farming, business, and life skills to ensure another generation is not lost.

11.05.2005 European ministers are in defensive mood in their grudging acceptance of the WTO ruling that sugar subsidies are illegal and unfair to other producing countries.

05.05.2005 "Somewhere along the line, three million Ethiopians have become a negligible statistic," said Oxfam International's humanitarian program director in Ethiopia Abera Tola Wednesday. Ethiopian and UN appeals--to help the country fight disease, feed its population, and develop its farming productivity to end the cycle of hunger once and for all--have largely fallen on deaf ears, the group said.