Full Coverage: Agriculture

31.01.2006 THE TALLY is growing. First it was confined to the frontline agricultural State of Punjab. But now the ultimate symbol of growing rural despair — putting villages up for sale — has spread to central India. Dorli, a sleepy village in Maharashtra's Wardha district, has sounded the bugle.

31.01.2006 Crops grown by small farmers are central to food security, health, economic growth, poverty reduction, and social stability in these regions. In determining how best to exploit the existing capacity for genome sequencing, therefore, we believe that crops essential to resource-poor farmers in developing countries should be given highest priority.

31.01.2006 Mina Swaminathan has been trying for over a year now to get the 120 agricultural universities in India introduce a short 18-hour module on gender issues in agriculture and rural livelihood, but without success. She says that the entire agricultural bureaucracy is gender insensitive.

31.01.2006 A fresh round of research missions is set to probe the seafloor rupture that triggered the devastating tsunami of 2004. But when researchers arrive in the Indian Ocean, they will find some areas are off-limits. Geologists want access to Indian waters to understand the devastating seafloor earthquake in 2004.

31.01.2006 Ordinary cotton-growers and other farmers have voted against introducing genetically-modified crops in a "citizens' jury" in Mali and instead proposed a package of recommendations to strengthen traditional agriculture and support for local farmers.

30.01.2006 SAFTA is aimed at reducing existing tariffs to less than 5 per cent within a stipulated time frame to boost trade among the SAARC member countries. India will have to allay fears of other members about its dominance

30.01.2006 The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has permitted IT-enabled rural outlets of corporate entities, agri business centres and NGOs to act as intermediaries to provide financial and banking services in these banks, a move seen by the unions as allowing outsourcing in PSU banks, which they would oppose.

30.01.2006 NEW DELHI: Concerned at the slowdown in agriculture growth, the Ministry of Agriculture has drawn a short-term and long-term strategy to achieve a growth rate of four per cent. It feels that shared responsibility between the Centre and the States in addressing common as well as region-specific constraints in agriculture can help in achieving the four per cent target growth rate in the sector.

27.01.2006 We observe that poverty of nations instead of wealth of nations and simultaneous wealth of transnational corporations. The wealth of the world has increased -- multinationals are becoming wealthier, but the majority of the people of the world and most nations of the world, the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), are becoming poorer. Mohammad Zakaria, ActionAid, Bangladesh, analyses the impact of globalization on LDCs and in particularly on Bangladesh. But the article represent south asia.

27.01.2006 The Agriculture Development Ministry will promote Sri Lanka's export agriculture crops throughout the world with the assistance of Trade Commissioners serving in Lankan missions abroad. Through this move, the Ministry intends to obtain more foreign exchange earnings, Agriculture Development Minister Chamal Rajapakse said.

27.01.2006 Active trading was witnessed on the cotton market on Wednesday as spinners and mills remained active buyers around the current levels for the fine lots.

26.01.2006 Poor farmers in developing countries can substantially improve both their yields and livelihoods by adopting resource-conserving practices, says a large international study to be published next month.

25.01.2006 UNITED NATIONS, Jan 25 (OneWorld) - Groups fighting for the rights of peasant communities are stepping up pressure on governments to ban the use of genetically modified ''suicide seeds'' at UN-sponsored talks on biodiversity in Spain this week.

24.01.2006 "The emergence of China and India" is among the major themes to be discussed by CEOs, heads of state, NGO leaders, and others at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. A major think tank offers some lessons learned from the emerging giants on the intersection of agriculture and poverty.

23.01.2006 Valentine's Day is coming up soon. Among other gifts, Lutheran World Relief offers chocolates from a cocoa cooperative in Ghana that ensures workers receive fair compensation for the chocolate they produce. Orders can be made online or via telephone.

19.01.2006 Nepal’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate in the fiscal year 2004-05 has gone down by 1.21 per cent compared to previous fiscal year, thanks to weak agricultural growth rate, low capital formation and dismal performance of non-agricultural sector.

19.01.2006 ISLAMABAD: World Bank country director John Wall has said that the bank will decide to finance the Bhasha dam after examining its feasibility report and detailed engineering, geological and economic studies.

18.01.2006 The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture – sometimes called the ‘seed treaty’ – was adopted by UN Food and Agriculture (FAO) member states in 2001 and came into force in 2004. Governments that signed on are now working out implementation details. Far from its roots in the struggle to assert farmers’ rights as a counterforce to breeders’ rights, the Treaty has ended up being mainly about granting new privileges to industry. It will give seed companies free access to most of the world’s public genebanks without any obligation to share their own materials in return.

18.01.2006 While West Bank unemployment hovers near 30%, some women are finding that small-scale economic initiatives offer a better future, including some 20 young women harnessing the fruits of abundant olive trees to produce and market value-added products--from soaps to cooking oil--around the world.

17.01.2006 O ministro da Economia Popular da Venezuela, Elias Jaua, em palestra proferida na noite da última sexta-feira, 13, no Sindicato dos Comerciários do Ceará, defendeu que o nordeste do Brasil seja o epicentro de um novo tipo de integración em que todos sejam incluídos.