Modern Agriculture

Normal 0

Agribusiness and society

By Kees Jansen, Sietze Vellema

How far agribusiness corporations are responding to the opportunities and pressures resulting from emerging environmental awareness, to play their part in the "greening" of agriculture and food. In particular, in what ways are these corporations changing their R&D and business practices in order to develop new environmentally oriented products, services and methods of production? And what can they change of their own volition, and where is external direction a necessary condition of environmentally friendly innovation? These questions are explored through a series of highly original investigations of particular biotech and other agribusiness companies--including Monsanto, Ciba Geigy, Dole, and Chiquita--and their behavior in particular parts of the world, including California, Europe, Australia, Brazil, and Central America.

You can read the book online.

A large number of growers from Punjab (In Pakistan)are also reported to have suffered from this disease: “Bipolaris sorokiniana” also known as Helminthosporium Leaf Blight (HLB). It spreads in warm and humid wheatgrowing areas, characterised by an average temperature above 17 0C in the coolest month. HLB is a seed and soil and air borne disease.The current occurrence seems to be air-borne with origin of spread presumably being coastal areas of India and Bangladesh.

Spot blotch: a new wheat crop disease by Manzoor Hussain, Dawn Economic & Business Review, 01 May 2009

Why have the farmers in India and other countries committed suicide in large numbers recently? The quick answers; indebtedness, pests, cost ineffectiveness, fall in public investment, technological fatigue, policy fatigues and so on. These superficial diagnosis would only hinder the attempts to unearth the real reason. Farmers faced many of these problems all through history.
\'Success\' of Agricultural Science: The Reason for Farmers\' Suicide!

by John M. Itty, People's Reporter, 25 August, 2007

A wide range of policies—and the second ‘Green Revolution’—that the government is introducing in conjunction with Indian corporate houses, American agribusinesses and food multinationals, will have a catastrophic impact on Indian farmers, on sustainability and on food security. The effects are already evident in states like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh
Pitfalls of the second green revolution

by Devinder Sharma, Infochange India, 01 October, 2006

Vidarbha is staring at the worst ever drought this year, with an unprecedented crop failure and steep decline in Rabi crop acreage due to depleted water table. Adding to the woes of farmers is the global economic meltdown and uncertainty in local markets over the prices of commodities, like cotton and soybean.“We’ve suffered bumper losses this year,” says Mohan Mamidwar, a farmer and political activist in Pandharkwda, Yavatmal. “Everything has been put on the hold for now,” he says, “including marriages or plans to buy new farming equipment.”The 50-year-old is reluctant to even talk about the crop situation, as it “opens up the wounds”. Kharif crop has failed, Rabi crop is set to be doomed, inflation has wreaked havoc in villages, farm wages have risen, and intensive use of chemicals coupled with adverse agro-climatic conditions has belted the soil health.
Vidarbha staring at worst drought

by Jaideep Hardikar, DNA, 16 December, 2008

ONCE the harbinger of the Green- Revolution in the country, the prototypical firmer of Punjab is no longer prosperous. The golden fields no longer inspire Baisakhi celebrations as more than 60 per cent of the state\'s cultivators are in debt. In what was previously considered the nation\'s grain bowl, the per farmer debt has reached Rs 45,000 ~ the highest in the land — and there is hardly any institutional lending system. Private money-lenders take a 36 per cent interest.
Green revolution\'s wounded warriors

by Tanveer Thakur, Grassroots, 01 May, 2006

World hunger is not new. Before the current price increase, 850 million people - 13% of the world\'s population - were chronically hungry. The number of under-fed people has steadily climbed over the past decade. Now, the World Food Programme estimates that the crisis has driven another 100 million people into hunger, including even urban middle class people in Indonesia and Mexico.
Causes and Strategies on World Hunger Green Revolution versus Sustainable Agriculture

by Katarina Wahlberg, Global Policy Forum, 03 May, 2008

The Green Revolution in Punjab
Indicative costs and benefits

COSTS

Decline in pulse production from 370,000
to 150,000 metric tons between 1965
and 1980.
Decline in oilseed production from 214,000
to 176,000 metric tons between 1965
and 1980.
Destruction of genetic diversity with
introduction of rice and wheat monocultures.
40 new insect pests and 12 new diseases
in rice monocultures.
Soils diseased with salinity, soil,
toxicity, micro-nutrient deficiency.
260,000 hectares waterlogged.
Punjab floods in 1988 linked to Dhakra
dam. 65% of 12,000 villages submerged,
3.4 million people affected, 1,500 people killed.
Loss to state, Rs 10 billion. 50,000 hectares of
land destroyed through sand deposits exceeding
60 cm in some places.

BENEFITS

1. Increase in rice production from 292,000
to 3.2 million metric tons between 1965
and 1980.
2. Increase in wheat production from 1.9 million
to 7.7 million metric tons between 1965 and
1980.

Modern agriculture, which was foisted on the Third World as the panacea for poverty and hunger, has
increasingly reaped more problems and disasters. Africa's food crisis and the failure of the hybrid seeds introduced by the Green Revolution in India are some of the results.

MODERN AGRICULTURE CAUSING FOOD PROBLEMS IN THIRD WORLD

by Vandana Shiva, Third World Network FEATURES, 01 January, 1970

That revolution was driven by a drought and disease-resistant wheat designed by an agronomist from Iowa that yielded unprecedented harvests in Latin America and Asia. Norman Borlaug is not as famous as he should be for a man credited with saving more lives than anyone in history but he was rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. Uganda\'s bid to copy the Borlaug\'s revolution is built on a new breed of rice that can grow in the drier uplands instead of the traditional wetland paddy fields and has doubled the country\'s production in only four years. Uganda\'s early success is the first indication that the bid by the Coalition for African Rice Development -- a group of development agencies, led by Japan -- to double rice production on the hungriest continent could work.
\'Miracle rice\' gives Uganda hope of its own green revolution

by Daniel Howden in Kampala, The Independent, 20 March, 2009

PRIME Minister Manmohan Singh is currently visiting Vidarbha district in Maharashtra. The countrywide interest in the relief package he is expected to unveil to address farmer distress in the area highlights the importance the problem of farmer suicides has acquired in recent times. Maharashtra has seen a four-fold increase in farmer suicides in less than ten years. The number has risen from 1,083 in 1995 to 4,147 in 2004.
The end of distress

by Ila Patnaik, The Indian Express, 01 July, 2006

It is a lost opportunity. Shaken by the spate of farmer suicides in Vidarbha, the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh did make an effort to have a first-hand feel of the agrarian crisis but failed to address the real causes behind the serial death dance. There is no denying that Dr Manmohan Singh is the first prime minister in the past 15 years to have actually visited a village (outside election campaigns).
A lost opportunity

by Devinder Sharma, Deccan Herald, 11 July, 2006

A total of 8,263 farmers committed suicide in seven States between 2003 and March, 2007. Besides Maharashtra (Vidarbha), Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, that were given a nearly Rs. 17,000 crore rehabilitation package last year, farmers suicides were also reported from Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Gujarat. There were nearly 4,000 suicides between 2005-06 and March 31, 2007 as reported by State Governments to the Union Agriculture Ministry. In Maharashtra alone there were distress suicides by 2,329 farmers in 2006. Till February this year, 239 suicides were reported.
Over 8,000 farmers committed suicide

by Gargi Parsai, THE HINDU, 08 May, 2007

farmers have committed suicide in the past 5 years, according to a recent district-wise survey
Crisis in grain bowl

by Manish Tiwari, The Hindustan Times, 05 June, 2007

The food crisis plaguing Africa\'s economic development can be solved by applying the lessons learned from the implementation of the Green Revolution in In- dia, according to Jeffrey Sachs, eminent development economist, special adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General and Director of the Earth Institute at Colum- bia University. \"Africa is now 40 years behind India in crucial aspects of development,\" said Professor Sachs, who was speaking at the M.S. Swaminathan Re- search Foundation (MSSRF) here on Thursday. \"But thankfully, with the lessons we have learned so far, along with developments in technology and our ability to dif- fuse information today, we will not need that long a time to close that gap.\" The current food crisis in sub-Saharan Africa is similar to the agrarian crisis India faced in 1965, Professor Sachs said.
Africa can profit from Green Revolution: Sachs

Subcategories

mod-agri-documents Article Count: 8

mod-agri-news & events Article Count: 10

Main Menu