Child Labor Rising Sharply in India’s Cities, Report Says

Urban India is employing an increasing number of children – many under 9 years old – in producing everything from pickles to fireworks, working in tourism and laboring on building sites, a U.N. children’s agency report and campaigners said. The State of Child Workers in India report by UNICEF, based on the latest Indian census data, says the proportion of child workers in the 5-to-9-year age group jumped to 24.8 percent in 2011 from 14.6 percent in 2001.

The Investment Case For New Zealand

U.S. markets are considered expensive and overvalued. A common indicator favoured by Warren Buffett, the market capitalization over GNP , shows that markets are significantly overvalued, by 31% to be exact.

The solidarity regardless of differences

The 6th founding anniversary of GERD will be colorfully celebrated accompanied with various activities such as fund raising and other mobilization forums throughout the country. The Great Run is one of these activities that took place on the 5th of March 2017 in Addis Ababa and other major cities of the country.

Bird Flu Found at Commercial Chicken Farm in Tennessee, USDA Says

A strain of bird flu has been found in a commercial chicken farm in Tennessee, the US Department of Agriculture and state government agencies said Sunday. The H7 strain of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, or HPAI, was found in a flock of 73,500 chickens in Lincoln County, in the central part of the state on the border with Alabama, the USDA said.

Bird flu found at commercial chicken farm in Tennessee, USDA says

A strain of bird flu has been found in a commercial chicken farm in Tennessee, the US Department of Agriculture and state government agencies said Sunday. The H7 strain of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, or HPAI, was found in a flock of 73,500 chickens in Lincoln County, in the central part of the state on the border with Alabama, the USDA said.

Bundaberg receives official drought declaration

The Bundaberg region has been officially drought-declared.The declaration, effective from March 1, brings the area of Queensland that is drought-declared to 84.29 per cent. SHARE Share on Facebook SHARE Share on Twitter TWEET Link Farmer Kelvin Griffins on his sugarcane farm in Bundaberg, which has received drought status.

Bundaberg receives official drought declaration

The Bundaberg region has been officially drought-declared.The declaration, effective from March 1, brings the area of Queensland that is drought-declared to 84.29 per cent. SHARE Share on Facebook SHARE Share on Twitter TWEET Link Farmer Kelvin Griffins on his sugarcane farm in Bundaberg, which has received drought status.

Some 100 million at risk of hunger and the number is rising

The number of people facing severe hunger worldwide has surpassed 100 million and will grow if humanitarian aid is not paired with more support for farmers, a senior United Nations official said. Dominique Burgeon, director of the emergency division at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said latest studies showed 102 million people faced acute malnutrition – meaning they were on the brink of starvation – in 2016, up almost 30 per cent from 80 million in 2015.

.com | Land reform favours businesses, not the poor – study

The land reform system in South Africa favours agricultural businesses and sidelines the intended beneficiaries, research in the Eastern Cape suggests. In a recent study of land reform in the Sarah Baartman district in the Eastern Cape, researchers Ruth Hall and Thembela Kepe found that none of the 11 beneficiaries investigated had any documented rights to their land, GroundUp reported.

Agriculture seen as No 2 environmental problem

Results of the 2016 Public Perceptions of New Zealand’s Environment survey were revealed on February 17 in an 82-page report by Profs Ken Hughey, Geoff Kerr, and Ross Cullen. Asked to identify the most important environmental issues facing New Zealand today, 31.1% of survey respondents said ”water related”, 9.9% said ”agriculture related”, 8.8% said ”greenhouse gases, climate change and ozone”, and 8.4% said ”waste”.

Brantley Gilbert plans to keep the devil awake this summer

After an incident in which hundreds of headstones at a cemetery were found broken and overturned, the head of The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia s… – At least 4 million people in the Chilean capital of Santiago are without water Monday after rainstorms and landslides have contaminated a major river… The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has been working with Nebraska’s farmers and ranchers to protect natural resources for o… Nebraska sophomore Jessica Shepard earned All-Big Ten honors for the second straight season, claiming spots on the second team by both the coaches and Big Ten media when confe… — The full complement of jurors was chosen Monday to hear the trial of former NFL star Aaron Hernandez.The 16 jurors selected will be sworn on Wednesday, with openin… — White House press secretary Sean Spicer told ABC News’ Jonathan … (more)

Oscar Winners React to “Moonlight” Mixup and More

After an incident in which hundreds of headstones at a cemetery were found broken and overturned, the head of The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia s… – At least 4 million people in the Chilean capital of Santiago are without water Monday after rainstorms and landslides have contaminated a major river… The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has been working with Nebraska’s farmers and ranchers to protect natural resources for o… Nebraska sophomore Jessica Shepard earned All-Big Ten honors for the second straight season, claiming spots on the second team by both the coaches and Big Ten media when confe… — The full complement of jurors was chosen Monday to hear the trial of former NFL star Aaron Hernandez.The 16 jurors selected will be sworn on Wednesday, with openin… — White House press secretary Sean Spicer told ABC News’ Jonathan … (more)

France’s disillusioned farmers turn to Le Pen

France’s presidential pretenders will this week make mandatory campaign stops at the annual Paris farm fair as polls show farmers increasingly tempted by the far-right’s Marine Le Pen when they even bother to vote at all. Though only a fraction of the population still works in the farm sector, voters remain attached to the country’s agrarian roots, making the annual agriculture fair a fixture of the political calendar.

Drought drives food price spike in East Africa, UN warns

East Africa’s ongoing drought has sharply curbed harvests and drive up the prices of cereals and other staple foods to unusually high levels, posing a heavy burden to households and special risks for pastoralists in the region, the United Nations Agricultural Agency said today. “Sharply increasing prices are severely constraining food access for large numbers of households with alarming consequences in terms of food insecurity,” said Mario Zappacosta, a senior economist for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization , in a news release.

South Korea to import 4.8 million vaccines against foot-and-mouth disease

A health officer checks a cattle in a farm in Gimje as a preventive measure against foot-and-mouth disease after South Korea on Monday confirmed a case of food-and-mouth at a dairy farm elsewhere in the country, South Korea, February 6, 2017. Moon Yo-han/News1 via South Korea’s agriculture ministry said on Monday it will import 4.8 million doses of foot-and-mouth vaccine by the end of this month in an effort to prevent further spread of the viral disease.

.com | Nothing new on land restitution

Despite the ANC and President Jacob Zuma hyping up the return of land late last year and during a statement on January 8, his state of the nation address this week contained hardly any new initiatives. Expanding on Zuma’s speech, Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti told City Press on Thursday night that they were working to fundamentally change the structure of the system, the patterns of ownership and the control of the economy.

Mexican farmer’s daughter: NAFTA destroyed us

If you ask President Donald Trump, Mexico won the lottery almost 25 years ago when it signed NAFTA, the free trade deal with the United States and Canada. “It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers of jobs and companies lost,” Trump tweeted on Jan. 26. But if you ask Griselda Mendoza, the deal nearly destroyed her family and her community of corn farmers in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.

UPDATE 1-Morocco threatens to cut EU ties if farm deal founders

Feb 6 Morocco’s government said on Monday it would end economic cooperation with the European Union if the bloc does not honour a farming deal, weeks after an EU court ruled that trade accords do not apply to the disputed Western Sahara region. In a statement to MAP state news agency, the agriculture ministry said the EU should resist any attempts to block Moroccan products entering into the European market but did not explain why the pact might be at risk.

Fortification plan for food

New Delhi, Feb. 4: The Centre has proposed making food fortification mandatory for all staples like rice, wheat flour, edible oil and milk to fight malnutrition but some experts have urged a cautious approach, warning of hidden costs and unproven health benefits. The Telegraph had reported in January 2016 that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pushed the idea of universal fortification – addition of key vitamin and minerals to foods to improve their nutritional value and address nutritional gaps in the population – in meetings with top officials of the ministries of agriculture, food and public distribution, commerce, health and women and child development.

Business Rx: This farming start-up seeks help cultivating advisors to help it grow

This week, a start-up that helps farmers in emerging economies find markets for their goods seeks advice on how to assemble an advisory board.- Dan Beyers After graduating from Brown University in 2007 with a degree in Business Economics, Ashley King-Bischof spent a season playing professional basketball in Europe. The travel for games piqued her interest in exploring more of the world.

Pervasive charcoal trade getting major rethink in Haiti

Pungent wood smoke wafts daily across the hinterlands of Haiti’s southern peninsula, where villagers stack smoldering wood beneath dirt mounds to make the charcoal that nearly all the urban households in the country use to cook every meal. For decades, authorities and development workers have denounced such rural charcoal makers for stripping the nation’s forests, sending topsoil to sea and helping make Haiti the poorest country in the Americas.

Trelleborg Named Official Partner Of The AGCO Africa Summit

Trelleborg has been named as an official partner of the 6th AGCO Africa Summit, which will be held in Berlin, Germany on January 23. Launched in 2012, the AGCO Africa Summit is one of the leading platforms for the discussion of the critical issues impacting the region’s agricultural development. The theme of the 2017 AGCO Africa Summit is ‘Agribusiness in Africa.

California fights Monsanto on labels for popular weed killer

A battle over the main ingredient in Roundup, a popular weed killer sprayed by farmers and home gardeners worldwide, is coming to a head in California, where officials want to be the first to label the chemical with warnings that it could cause cancer. Monsanto rejects any health risk of its top-selling herbicide.

Politicians woo farming lobby ahead of Brexit trigger

There has been a sudden burst of interest from top Scottish politicians in this year’s NFU Scotland’s AGM, annual dinner and conference in Glasgow in a fortnight’s time. If a six-way battle for inclusion in the organisation’s own top team wasn’t enough excitement to fuel the two-day event, the ongoing battle for hearts and minds over the Brexit issue has also galvanised big hitters from the Scottish Parliament to take the opportunity to address what is likely to be the farming industry’s most talked-about bash of the year.

Meet the scientist who developed the orange fleshed sweet potato

In 1978, when he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Makerere University, he started the preliminary breeding work at the then Kawanda Research Station Left to right, Drs Jan Low, Maria Andrade with Dr Mwanga. In 2016, the team, together with Dr. Howarth Bouis were honoured with the prestigious World Food Prize for their work on orange fleshed sweet potato.