Case for evergreen revolution
D. NARASIMHA REDDY
Swaminathan's abiding interest is, however, in using science for strengthening the small-farmer economy and in community approach to food and nutrition security. The success stories are drawn from Sri Lanka and Thailand, and the MSS Foundation's own initiatives, and the strategy for India is a life-cycle approach and community “food banks”, including locally grown millets, at the village level. The breadth of history, the depth of science in Einsteinian social perspective, the nuanced reflections on the contribution and conditions of humble peasantry, and an informed concern over the ecological imbalance and climate change — all these distinguishing features of the volume make it a rewarding reading.

About nutritional security v/s food security

I INVITE OTHERS TO JOIN IN THIS DEBATE - Shambu..

Dinesh Kumar: The national food security mission is coming up with food security act..
is there any way the issue of nutritional security and the value of supplying whole grains be raised.
If we can shift from consuming the Polished white rice to partially polished or unpolished rice - we will be making a huge jump in ensuring the nutritional security of our country's population also using the unpolished paddy rice/ semi polished paddy rice will bring down over all food grain requirement of the family by close to
30% if not more.
Shambu: We have little public policy support for sustainability. The very fact that whether it is SRI or any other practice that is sustainable and contributing to local food security, public policy is biased against this and hell bent on providing unreachable quantities of grain to the poor.

 

This issue of The State of Food and Agriculture surveys the current state of the debate on biofuels and explores these implications. It examines the policies being implemented in support of biofuels and the policies that would be needed to address their implications for the environment, food security and the poor.

 

The recent emergence of liquid biofuels based on agricultural crops as transport fuels has reasserted the linkages between energy and agricultural output markets. Liquid biofuels have the potential to exert a significant effect on agricultural markets, but they are, and are likely to remain, a relatively small part of the overall energy market. The world’s total primary energy demand amounts to about 11 400 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) per year (IEA, 2007); biomass, including agricultural and forest products and organic wastes and residues, accounts for 10 percent of this total.

THE STATE OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE 2008
BIOFUELS: prospects, risks and opportunities

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FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS, Rome, 2008