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Obituary: Peaceful warrior: Permaculture visionary Bill Mollison

27th September 2016

Australian educator, author and co-inventor of Permaculture, Bruce Charles ‘Bill’ Mollison, died on the 24 September 2016. He has been praised across the world for his visionary work, and left behind a global network of ‘peaceful warriors’ in over 100 countries working tirelessly to fulfill his ambition to build harmony between humanity and Mother Earth….

India’s organic rice revolution proves GMOs are unnecessary

26th September 2016

Whitney Webb reports: Farmers in India’s poorest region are recording record rice yields by growing organically, debunking once and for all the myth that GMOs are necessary to feed the world’s growing population… In Bihar, Sumant Kumar and his family produced an astounding 22.4 tons of rice on only one hectare of land, in 2013….

Soon, we may not have a Cauvery river to fight over

25th September 2016

Nityanand Jayaraman writes: The complexity of river systems, the hydrological dynamics that determine their ebb and flow, and anthropogenic confounders such as land-use change and climate change had no influence on the tribunal order… Today’s planners try to spare water for ecological flows, not realising that ecological flows are what keep the river a river….

Who is Devinder Sharma? Whose interests does Kisan Ekta serve?

24th September 2016

Anandi Sharan writes: Devinder Sharma is a founder member of Kisan Ekta, that claims to represent ‘400 million farmers, fishermen and farm workers’. But does Sharma, a close associate of the controversial yoga teacher-turned businessman Baba Ramdev, understand the ground reality of the politics of food, agriculture and hunger? Whose interests does Kisan Ekta serve?…

Are we working harder to make India’s farmers suffer?

20th September 2016

Suraj Kumar Thube writes: Much of the naturalisation of the suicides has also got to do with the urban perception of rural areas and rural lifestyles. The oriental imagination still does not cease to colonise our minds in terms of perceiving the rural as a stagnant and unchanging space characterised by divisive notions of caste-consciousness….

A ‘time-lapse’ view of the water wars, in Bangalore (and soon, the world)

13th September 2016

Yesterday, with protests over the Cauvery water dispute bringing Bangalore to its knees, many of the city’s techno-optimists found themselves stranded on its burning roads, like bunnies caught in headlights. It might just be another sign that ‘life as we know it’ is about to change forever, both in India and the world, writes Vijay Kundaji….

Video & Report: Four important lessons from Cuba’s urban food survival strategy

11th September 2016

Aurel Keller writes: The collapse of the Soviet Union, and resultant loss of imports crucial for the island nation’s industrial agriculture system left Cuba with a severe food crisis in the 1990s. Today, Cuba has become a regional leader in sustainable agriculture, and its practices and institutions a model for localized and small-scale urban agriculture….

Debate: Can organic farming feed the world?

5th September 2016

Bjorn Lomborg, long known as a ‘contrarian’ environmentalist, recently triggered a heated media debate when he claimed that organic farming cannot provide food security for the world, and even asserted that it is bad for the environment. Here we present Lomborg’s original column in USA Today and a selection of voices that counter his view….

A desert storm is engulfing India

26th August 2016

Indira Khurana writes: A whopping 25 per cent of India’s total land (329 mn ha) is undergoing desertification while 32 per cent (105 mn ha) is facing degradation that has reduced productivity, critically affecting livelihoods and food security of millions across the country. Combating desertification brings together three interdependent natural resources: Land, water and biodiversity….

Archival photo of a boat rally in protest against the Sardar Sarovar dam

Flashback: Arundhati Roy’s classic essay on the Narmada resistance

25th August 2016

The Narmada Bachao Andolan began 31 years ago as a protest against the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada river, and went on to raise questions about the very development model India has embraced. Today, with the NBA reviving their landmark struggle for justice, we are re-publishing author Arundhati Roy’s landmark 1999 essay on the topic….

India has sacrificed agriculture on the altar of GDP

22nd August 2016

Devinder Sharma writes: The real cost of economic reforms is being borne by rural India. The first-ever Socio Economic Census has now clearly brought out this stark reality… The economic wealth of 15 families in India equals that of 600 million people… On the other hand, 60-crore farmers are paying the price for unjust economic reforms….

CAMPA: The return of British Raj to the forests

20th August 2016

Gladson Dungdung writes: With the CAMPA bill being passed, the forest department has regained its lost hegemonic power over Adivasis. Many past and present instances suggest that the CAMPA amounts to the return of a British Raj-like regime to the forest, aggravating resource based conflict and the enmity between the State and forest dwelling communities….

Video: This ‘botanical explorer’ believes that plants are our future

3rd August 2016

Crystal Stevens writes: Joseph Simcox is an ethnobotanist who has an intrinsic fascination with nature’s wonders. This ‘botanical explorer’, travels the world finding rare and even new plants. He believes that plants are our future, and passionately teaches the importance of symbiotic relationships between us and plants for us to live well on this planet….

Permaculture and Primitvism: Two alternatives to the technological destruction of nature

2nd August 2016

Gaurav Sangwani writes: Permaculture tries to utilise the existing elements in the land to take human freedom further, with a far lower ecological effect. Primitivism is the perennial belief in the need to go back to where we started, the lost Golden Age of freedom and guiltlessness which is at the heart of all the world’s religions….

Representative pic

Bharat Mansata: The rich diversity of forest foods

31st July 2016

Almost two decades back, about two dozen of us pooled resources to buy undulating land, now known as Vanvadi, in the foothills of the Sahyadris; our primary aim – ecological regeneration and local self-reliance. A survey of the botanical wealth of Vanvadi surprised us with 52 plant species of uncultivated forest foods that provide edible….

Representational pic

The Chizami model of development

24th July 2016

Ananda Banerjee reports: Chizami village, located in Phek district of eastern Nagaland, has 600 households with a population of 3,000. Chizami is considered a model village for the quiet revolution it has led in the past decade in terms of socioeconomic reforms and environment protection. The village council imposes strict fines on those violating norms….

All pics by P. Sainath/People's Archive of Rural India

P. Sainath: The sacred waters of a tanker

From Ruralindiaonline.org: Rampant deforestation, extensive damming of the rivers, huge diversions of water for industrial projects and even elite resorts can be seen across the state. All these underlie Maharashtra’s terrible water crisis. They won’t get washed away by the monsoon, even if the media coverage of it dries up with onset of the rains….

A view of the Sangatya farm

Sangatya Commune: An experiment in sustainable living

22nd July 2016

The New indian Express profiles ‘Sangatya’ commune, and its co-founder, Shreekumar a chemical engineer turned organic farmer and activist and Ecologise.in author. Sangatya, located in Nakre village near Karkala in south Karnataka, is experimenting with creating spaces for sustainable living. The commune is also a place to gain hands-on experience in many areas, including community-building….

Archival photo of a boat rally in protest against the Sardar Sarovar dam

Narmada Bachao Andolan

Spotlight: The Narmada valley’s unfolding social and ecological disaster

21st July 2016

Its 25 years since the Narmada Bachao Andolan started mobilising resistance against the destruction of life and livelihood in the Narmada valley. Today, with more than two lakh people who’ve not been resettled threatened with submergence, that resistance is being revived. A closer look at the history and politics of big dams on the Narmada river….

Watch: A blistering critique of India’s “destructive development”

19th July 2016

In this video, which has since gone viral, Binay Kumar, a corporate employee turned farmer addresses an audience in Bangalore, offering a sharp take on India’s rampant urbanization, catastrophic development model, the ongoing agrarian crisis and the rural-urban divide that feeds it. He states the obvious, but bitter truth: “Everybody wants to eat, but nobody wants to grow.”…