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African pastoralism has been dismissed as outdated and inefficient. But awareness of its social and environmental benefits is growing. Read more here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).

‘Towards Food Sovereignty’ is an online book with full color photo illustrations and linked video and audio files. It describes the ecological basis of food and agriculture, the social and environmental costs of modern food systems, and the policy reversals needed to democratize food systems. (…)

In 2006-08, Maharashtra (India) saw 12, 493 farm suicides. That is 85 per cent higher than the 6,745 suicides it recorded during 1997-1999. And the worst three-year period for any State, any time. The dismal truth is that very high numbers of farm suicides still occur within a fast decreasing (…)

SciDev.net publishes a spotlight on the challenge of improving nutrition in the developing world.
More than a billion people in developing countries suffer from malnutrition, increasing the risk of disease and death, and reducing long-term economic productivity and development. But (…)

Twenty two per cent of Orissa’s population are tribals, and another 16 per cent are dalits, both highly vulnerable communities. Therefore, proper mapping of BPL (Below Poverty Line) families is important, as it serves as the lifeline for many. But the BPL politics at the central level is skewed, (…)

The huge government subsidy of Rs 12,000 crore is not only a financial millstone around our neck. By encouraging unrestrained use of fertilisers it is destroying our soils and agriculture. More and more farmers themselves are questioning the policy, having experienced a host of problems with (…)

Today’s food is well travelled. A pack of green beans in a Northern supermarket may have journeyed 6000 miles, or 60. But while food miles loom large in our carbon-aware times, transporting it counts for less than you might think. And there is a far bigger picture. Food is more than a plateful (…)

An inexplicable pricing regime and skewed export-import policies bring about a crisis for sugarcane farmers and consumers alike. From Rs.17 a kilogram barely six months ago to Rs.42 a kg now, sugar is fast running out of the common man’s reach. The crisis is likely to turn worse because a (…)

The notion that somehow we can transform the world by shopping is a debilitating one, and it’s one that George Monbiot has recently done a fine job of skewering. In his latest, he references a piece in the journal Nature in which it appears that consumers who buy green goods feel that their (…)

Bt brinjal is a step away from becoming India’s first genetically modified food crop. Whether it will enter our kitchens, now depends on the Union environment ministry.
On October 14, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (geac, the clearing house for all genetically modified crops in (…)

The hike in global food prices has pushed hundreds of millions more people into poverty, and sparked riots and protests in the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. Walden Bello, the leading writer and activist on the global South, provides a penetrating analysis of the various causes: not just (…)

The current global food crisis — decades in the making — is a crushing indictment against capitalist agriculture and the corporate monopolies that dominate the world’s food systems. The role of the industrial agrifood complex in creating the crisis (through the monopolization of input (…)

Food Rebellions! is a powerful handbook for those seeking to understand the causes and potential solutions to the current food crisis now affecting nearly half of the world’s people. Why are food riots are occurring around the world in a time of record harvests? What are the real impacts of (…)

Large-scale acquisitions of farmland in Africa, Latin America, Central Asia and Southeast Asia are making headlines in a flurry of media reports across the world. Lands that only a short time ago seemed of little outside interest are now being sought by international investors by the tune of (…)

Agrofuels, which rely on large scale industrial monocultures, are a cause of global warming, not part of a solution. Promoted as a means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they are in fact resulting in greater emissions because they promote deforestation and the destruction of other ecosystems (…)

This paper examines the policies and practices on land of the Department for International Development (DfID) of the United Kingdom. While DfID’s approach to land reform in the 1980s reflected the dictates of modernisation, formal registration and market-led distribution of land of the (…)

Today’s food and financial crises have, in tandem, triggered a new global land grab. On the one hand, “food insecure” governments that rely on imports to feed their people are snatching up vast areas of farmland abroad for their own offshore food production. On the other hand, food corporations (…)

As many Latin American policy analysts have suggested, the election of moderate-left Fernando Lugo and his Alianza Patriotica para el Cambio coalition is yet another manifestation of a South American referendum in favor of a socialist-tinged democracy. Undoubtedly, Lugo’s inauguration marked a (…)

Brazil’s agribusiness is lobbying to make the case, but people and the environment are paying the price.
In spite of overwhelming criticism of agrofuels as a ’solution’ to climate change, sugarcane ethanol is often seen as the one more positive exception. The Brazilian government is lobbying (…)

From Asia to North America, people are eating more seafood, either because it’s the most affordable form of protein (as in many poorer nations) or because it’s the latest health food trend (as in many wealthy nations). But as the demand for fish rises, populations of both marine and freshwater (…)