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	Investing in agriculture key to ending extreme rural poverty in South Asia by UN News & news agencies   April 2011   South Asia continues to have the largest concentrations of poor rural populations despite the fact that the wider Asia-Pacific region has made major strides in combating poverty, a United Nations agency said today, stressing that agriculture is key to poverty alleviation.   The study by the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), entitled Agriculture – Pathways to Prosperity in Asia and the Pacific, shows that rural poverty rates have dropped only slightly in the last decade in South Asia, which now has the largest number of poor rural people – about half a billion – of any region in the world. Four-fifths of all extremely poor people in South Asia live in rural areas.   Overall, extreme poverty in rural areas of developing countries in the region dropped from 48 per cent to 34 per cent over the past decade. Commenting on the report, Thomas Elhaut, the Director of IFAD’s Asia and the Pacific Division, noted that more than 350 million people in the Asia-Pacific region had lifted themselves out of poverty over the past 10 years.   “There remains an urgent need to invest more and better in agriculture and rural areas in developing countries, based on a new approach to smallholder agriculture that is both market-oriented and sustainable,” said Mr. Elhaut.   More than 680 million people in the Asia-Pacific region continue to live on less than $1.25 a day, and 70 per cent are inhabitants of Bangladesh, India, Nepal or Pakistan, according to IFAD.   Across the region, 70 per cent of the poor live in rural areas and are generally landless, have large families, lack education and have limited access to markets, credit and technology.   Most have a high degree of vulnerability to shocks such as severe illnesses, natural disasters and sudden food price fluctuations. The region is also highly vulnerable to variations in energy prices due to its high dependence on fossil fuels.   IFAD stresses that agriculture contributes substantially to growth in gross domestic product (GDP) and poverty reduction.   The Asia-Pacific region needs large increases in overseas development assistance, agricultural spending and fertilizer use to achieve Millennium Development Goal 1 (MDG1), which aims to end extreme poverty and hunger by the target date of 2015. “So the prospects of achieving MDG1 are not so daunting,” said Mr. Elhaut.   “Each country must have policies in place to spur growth in the rural sector, enhance food security and overcome poverty,” Mr. Elhaut emphasized.   25 Apr 2011   Bank warns of Effects of Rising Food Prices.   Sharp rises in food prices are a threat to economic growth in Asia and could push millions of people into extreme poverty, the Asian Development Bank said in a report to be released on Tuesday.   Food prices in Asia have increased an average of about 10 percent so far this year, which the bank calculates could force 64 million people below the poverty income threshold of $1.25 per person a day if prices remain at current levels.   “Whenever we say that Asia’s growth rate is booming and Asia is a new global growth center, people misunderstand the point,” said Changyong Rhee, the chief economist of the bank, which is supported by governments and helps finance infrastructure projects around the region, among other activities. “Asia is home to two-thirds of the world’s poor. There is still a long way to go.”   Asia is a major contributor to global inflation and is vulnerable to its effects. Growth in China and India is blamed for pushing up prices of many commodities. The region’s population density and uneven income distribution make people there especially susceptible to spikes in food prices, Mr. Rhee said. The poor in Asia typically spend about two-thirds of their income on food.   Barclays Capital, a securities firm, has reported that food prices in Vietnam, one of the countries worst hit by inflation, rose 24 percent over the last 12 months, the fastest pace in more than two years.   Mr. Rhee of the Asian Development Bank said “it’s time for us to talk about long-term investments in food to make sure this problem is not recurring”.   Poor countries that are net food importers are the most vulnerable to the increases, Mr. Rhee said, citing Bangladesh, the Philippines, India and Sri Lanka. Visit the related web page
	Crushed by Debt, Indian Farmers Commit Suicide at Staggering Rate by Smita Narula, Vandana Shiva Democracy Now India   June 2011   Land is a powerful commodity that should be used for the betterment of humanity, by Vandana Shiva. (Al Jazeera)   Land is life. It is the basis of livelihoods for peasants and indigenous people across the Third World and is also becoming the most vital asset in the global economy. As the resource demands of globalisation increase, land has emerged as a key site of conflict. In India, 65 per cent of people are dependent on land. At the same time a global economy, driven by speculative finance and limitless consumerism, wants the land for mining and for industry, for towns, highways, and biofuel plantations.   Financial capital is ever hungry for investments and returns on investments. It must commodify everything on the planet - land and water, plants and genes, microbes and mammals. The commodification of land is fuelling the corporate land grab in India, both through the creation of Special Economic Zones and through foreign direct investment in real estate.   Land, for most people in the world, is Terra Madre, Mother Earth, Bhoomi, Dharti Ma. The land is people''s identity; it is the ground of culture and economy. The bond with the land is a bond with Bhoomi, our Earth; 75 per cent of the people in the Third World live on the land and are supported by the land. The Earth is the biggest employer on the planet: 75 per cent of the wealth of the people of the global south is in land.   Colonisation was based on the violent takeover of land. And now, globalisation as recolonisation is leading to a massive land grab in India, in Africa, in Latin America. Land is being grabbed for speculative investment, for speculative urban sprawl, for mines and factories, for highways and expressways. Land is being grabbed from farmers after trapping them in debt and pushing them to suicide.   In India, the land grab is facilitated by the toxic mixture of the colonial Land Acquisition Act of 1894, the deregulation of investments and commerce through neo-liberal policies - and with it the emergence of the rule of uncontrolled greed and exploitation. It is facilitated by the use of colonial sedition laws which define defence of the public interest and national interest as anti-national.   The World Bank has worked for many years to commodify land. The 1991 World Bank structural adjustment programme reversed land reform, deregulated mining, roads and ports. While the laws of independent India to keep land in the hands of the tiller were reversed, the 1894 Land Acquisition Act was untouched.   Thus the state could forcibly acquire the land from the peasants and tribal peoples and hand it over to private speculators, real estate corporations, mining companies and industry.   Across the length and breadth of India, from Bhatta in Uttar Pradesh (UP) to Jagatsinghpur in Orissa to Jaitapur in Maharashtra, the government has abandoned our farmers, our annadatas, in order to grab their fertile farmland.   Their instrument is the colonial Land Acquisition Act - used by foreign rulers against Indian citizens. The government is behaving as the foreign rulers did when the Act was first enforced in 1894, appropriating land for the profit of corporations.   These land grabs have serious consequences for our nation''s democracy, our peace and our ecology, our food security and rural livelihoods. The land wars must stop if India is to survive ecologically and democratically.   Aljazeera.net   * Dr. Vandana Shiva is founder/director of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology.   Apr 2011   Crushed by Debt, Indian Farmers Commit Suicide at Staggering Rate, by Smita Narula.   A quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide in the last 16 years—an average of one suicide every 30 minutes. The crisis has ballooned with economic liberalization that has removed agricultural subsidies and opened Indian agriculture to the global market.   Small farmers are often trapped in a cycle of insurmountable debt, leading many to take their lives out of sheer desperation.   We speak with Smita Narula of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University Law School, co-author of a new report on farmer suicides in India. Visit the related web page
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