Food and Nutrition

Huddled in the Aravali range in the southern part of Rajasthan about 26 km from Udaipur, is the largest reserve of phosphate in India.

Chedua Bedia is a 47-year-old marginal farmer from Dubulabeda village, Angara block of Ranchi district. In addition to being a successful farmer, Chedua has founded a school and motivates other farmers from his village to attend classes!

The Niyamagiri hills in the Eastern Ghats is peopled by indigenous groups such as the Dongria and Kutia Kondhs -- or 'primitive tribal groups’ in official phrasing. For them, these hills which spread over 300 sq kms in Rayagada and Kalahandi districts in southwestern Orissa, is the sacred abode of Niyamraja, their God.

Climate change has been predicted to create increasing risks for the agricultural sector thus inversely affecting agricultural production and farm incomes in India. These risks have already manifested in the form of increasing intensity and extent of droughts, floods, temperature rise and fall, and other calamities in the country.

The agriculture sector has been playing a significant role in shaping India’s overall growth trajectory. What promising initiatives should the Budget 2015-16 come up with? Should it extend timely credit facilities to farmers belonging to all the farming categories? Should it extend crop insurance facilities to all farmers and for all crops? 

Should the next Union Budget go all-in on climate change? Should clean energy, state incentives, mitigation and adaptation all emerge as priorities? How will the administration deal with extreme weather events that become more common with climate change?

Sustainable management of groundwater continues to be ignored in India although its hydrogeological and socieconomic aspects continue to be studied extensively. Despite recognition of its importance at the policy level, no clear plan of action exists for groundwater management in India. 

“In gram crops to control gram-pod borers, use pheromone traps”. While a statement like that most likely won't make sense to average people, it does to the farming community in the Sangamner taluka of Ahmednagar, Maharashtra. They have been trained to make sense of the agro-advisory provided by Vasundhara Sewaks.

Gurdeep Bains is busy dealing with two sets of contractors who have arrived to net his fish. He had to refuse a third. “This is the scenario when the market is supposedly down as people tend to avoid non-vegetarian food during saavan, one of the holiest months in the traditional Hindu calendar.