The International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC), an inter-governmental treaty signed by 184 countries, dubbed it an “unfortunate coincidence” that during the International Year of Plant Health (IYPH) in 2020, the…
Can tea agroforestry mosaics in Assam, the world’s largest, contiguous tea-growing area in the world pitch in, in the fight against climate change? Researchers working on sprawling tea estates to…
Come monsoon, Sardara Singh looks forward to planting Melia composita trees (a wild relative of neem) in his seven-acre plot embedded in an agroforestry mosaic in the north-west Indian state…
Countries in the Global South, including India, are struggling with multiple challenges related to food system sustainability, according to researchers who have mapped the sustainability of food systems (SFS) country-wise.…
In Mizoram’s rugged mountains, telltale signs of climate change and population pressure show on slash-and-burn agriculture (jhum or shifting cultivation) and its indigenous practitioners (jhumias), who soldier on despite production…
First reported in Central America 2004 and then in the United States, the rugose spiraling whitefly, an invasive alien insect pest, was quietly siphoning out the sap from coconut palms…
Wary of chicken pumped with antibiotics making its way into Manipur’s markets, a section of poultry and dairy farm owners in the Indian state recently appealed to the state government…
Caught in the transition from shifting cultivation (jhum) to rubber monocropping, members of indigenous communities in a remote district in Tripura - India’s second rubber capital - are “struggling” or…
Can nutritionally diverse cropping systems make India’s children resilient to future drought-linked stunting? According to a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the…
Oblivious to those depending on bananas for their favourite protein shake or breakfast fix, a deadly fungus has sneaked up on banana plantations in South America, threatening the fruit’s future.…
As salt-spoiled soils increase across the world, can neglected and underutilised crop species be the rising stars in sustainable agriculture in salinisation-hit countries such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh? Spotlighting…
Twenty-seven-year-old progressive woman farmer Ranjana Kukreti is ecstatic with the fresh produce from her 1.5-acre farm and greenhouse in the Himalayan foothills in Uttarakhand. In the climate-controlled and meticulously monitored…
As India battles invasion of the cereal-eating moth, fall armyworm (FAW), which is now chomping its way into northeastern states, scientists have turned their attention to another incursion, from the…
It has been a decade since Cyclone Aila ravaged the Bay of Bengal. But paddy farmer Tapan Mondal, is wary of growing legumes and watermelon in the still-recovering soil of…
Farmers in three countries, including in India, have turned into citizen scientists, helping generate data on crop varieties that adapt best to potential climatic changes. In a study spanning India,…
In the scenic Western Himalayan foothills, an artificial intelligence (AI) application has sniffed out how natural resource management policies are doing on the ground. The AI application used a machine…
Reviving traditional peoples’ knowledge of sustainable food systems and use of biodiversity could act as a bulwark against the triple threat of obesity, undernutrition and climate change, described as “three…
Beetle fry, anyone? A ‘Pest-aurant’ in the remote and rapidly-shrinking Majuli, world’s largest river island in northeast India, has cooked up a unique method to prevent pests from attacking crops…
For India to balance nutritional security and environmental protection, improving the quality of vegetarian diets to incorporate greater diversity remains a challenge, a section of experts have said in the…
In Meghalaya’s tough hill terrains that limit field visits, space technology is aiding the selection of areas that are suited for growing and expanding cultivation of boro rice which is…
