/topics/food-and-nutrition
Food and Nutrition
Bee in safe hands
Posted on 06 Nov, 2017 11:21 AMStudies suggest that bees are disappearing at a rapid rate in India. Should we be worried? The disappearance of bees has particularly alarming implications for human existence. Honey bees play a very important role in preserving the biodiversity of nature.
![Amit with a bee box installed in a garden at a house in Pune. (Image source: Amit Godse)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/amit1.jpg?itok=huWGO1Mv)
Playing the soil health card
Posted on 01 Aug, 2017 11:49 AMDecades of skating over environmental concerns have clearly cost us dear. The folly of pursuing better crop yields using chemical fertilisers in an indiscriminate manner has been surfacing lately. “Decades of agricultural abuse using fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides have taken its toll on us.
![The electrical conductivity of a diluted soil sample is being tested as a measure of soil salinity. (Image:CSIRO, Wikimedia Commons; CC Attribution 3.0 Unported)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/csiro_scienceimage_1740_testing_soil_salinity.jpg?itok=ZsdGRNj9)
Saving soil health
Posted on 01 Jul, 2017 10:21 PMBhanu is bracing herself for an income loss this year. The wheat she sowed after bajra in winter did not give her the productivity expected. Her soil health is declining, she says. To top it all, she is afraid there will be deficient rainfall this year in her village in Ferozepur Jhirka in Mewat in Haryana.
![Farmers thresh paddy during harvest at Sangrur, Punjab. (Source: Neil Palmer, CIAT, 2011, Wikimedia Commons)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/threshing_harvest_sangrur_punjab_india-neil-palmer-ciat-2011-wikimedia-commons_0.jpg?itok=dQLRDtkc)
Seed of doubt
Posted on 21 Jun, 2017 05:30 PMSigns of mustard aphid, a key pest of the mustard crop appeared predictably in November last year in Dinesh’s farm. Drifting across the open green fields, it landed on the tender leaves of the mustard crop. “It sets in November during the flowering and pod bearing stage of the crop and lasts till January.
![Opposition to GM mustard intensifies in India. (Image: Swadeshi Kheti)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/gm_0.jpg?itok=UIyo7z0H)
Chilka's health brings wealth
Posted on 19 Jun, 2017 12:44 PMSpanning over 1,165 sq km, the Chilika Lake is Asia’s largest saltwater lake. Over 200,000 fishers and 400,000 farmers depend on the lake for their livelihood. But what makes this lake stand out is its biodiversity.Over a million migratory birds winter here, making it a bird watcher’s paradise in India.
![The Chilika Lake. (Source: India Water Portal)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/30347858053_a6bb48c3f4_o_0.jpg?itok=tkncXZnb)
In the name of development
Posted on 06 May, 2017 08:12 PMPankaj Sekhsaria’s recent book Islands in flux--The Andaman and Nicobar Story is a collection of around 20 years of his writings on the environmental and conservation concerns faced by the indigenous tribal communities of the region.
![The forests and the tribal communities of the islands are being decimated. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/wikimedia_commons.jpg?itok=JmEotKOU)
Ryots wronged, take protest to Delhi
Posted on 13 Apr, 2017 05:51 AMA woman stands with a begging bowl and a placard strung around her neck. An old man shuffles along barefoot in the street at Jantar Mantar, the official site of a farmers’ protest in the heart of New Delhi. He finds his way through a group of farmers gathered at the protest site on a hot summer afternoon.
![Tamil Nadu farmers protest for drought relief in Delhi.](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/agitators-final.jpg?itok=wXCtxpeW)
Election update: Its hills vs plains in Manipur
Posted on 04 Mar, 2017 05:33 PMThe key issue in the Manipur Assembly election is the ongoing economic blockade in the state, which, in turn, is attributed to the present government’s decision to
![A Manipuri family. (Source: Coffee Table Book, Government of Manipur)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/manipuri-smile-gom.jpg?itok=sdrnIfcQ)
‘We have more hardy, nutritious grains than GM can offer’
Posted on 16 Feb, 2017 05:59 PMFarming can’t be sustainable without the seeds which are best suited to the location, water availability, soil type and weather. According to records, there were 1.10 lakh varieties of rice in India till 1965. After that, the Green Revolution happened, which pushed for hybrid varieties.
![At his farm in Odisha, Deb conserves 1,200 traditional varieties of rice.](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/rice_1.jpg?itok=p7pUHDnD)
All eyes on agriculture
Posted on 31 Jan, 2017 07:28 PMThe agriculture sector in India’s drought-ravaged regions is in a state of crisis. Millions of farmers are pushed out of their farms and into the cities for jobs.
![Farmers thresh paddy during harvest at Sangrur, Punjab. (Source: Neil Palmer, CIAT, 2011, Wikimedia Commons)](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_articles/public/iwp/threshing_harvest_sangrur_punjab_india-neil-palmer-ciat-2011-wikimedia-commons.jpg?itok=LRwAqKx7)