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V. Ramanatha Rao*

Parts 1 of this 3-part blog described the interconnectedness of environment and biodiversity (including agricultural biodiversity) with human health, nutrition, and food security. Part 2 focused on some challenges encountered in trying to balance or harmonize those elements in efforts at sustainable development, as well as suggested a few indicative strategies to address the challenges, with full policy support fromgovernment. In Part 3 here, the concluding part, we will look at two examples of work that tries to integrate at least some of the various elements already listed, with a view to achieve sustainable development. They illustrate how one may address the different elements in a holistic fashion.

V Ramanatha Rao* Part 1 of this 3-part blog briefly described the interconnectedness between environment, biodiversity (including agricultural biodiversity), and human health, nutrition, and food security. Here in Part 2, the focus is first on a few challenges encountered in

V Ramanatha Rao*

The world today faces both climate change and biodiversity loss, which are interlinked. They influence human health, nutrition, and food security. Studies have shown that any one of these problems cannot be tackled without addressing the others; solving them requires cooperation and collaboration between researchers, institutions (both governmental and nongovernmental), policymakers, and others.

V. Ramanatha Rao, C.L. Laxmipathi Gowda, S.V. Raghuram Shetty, M.J. Vasudeva Rao, D.R. Mohan Raj

Given greater awareness of environmental degradation, research in recent years has focussed on how different facets of human activity contribute to climate change and/or biodiversity loss. In that context, some studies have attempted to analyse the biodiversity footprint of various agricultural products, with the aim of potentially reducing the consumption of food products with a high biodiversity footprint. (Note: Biodiversity footprint is a metric used to estimate biodiversity loss; a higher footprint would imply a greater loss of biodiversity.)

CL Laxmipathi Gowda, V Ramanatha Rao, SV Raghuram Shetty, MJ Vasudeva Rao, P Parthasarathy Rao, DM Hegde, SA Angadi, and Paul Quek The authors are all Global Experts with Global Research for Development Support Ventures (GRSV), with the first four

GRSV Blog no. 11
V. Ramanatha Rao
Release date: 26-07-2022

        Economic growth/development means different things to different people. Among the numerous definitions, one that most appeals to me most considers economic growth as “an increase in the amount of goods and services produced per head of the population over a period of time.” The critical point here is that economic growth should increase people’s real income (i.e., people can buy goods and services at affordable cost and thus become less poor). However, economists usually measure economic growth in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) or related indicators, such as gross national product (GNP) or gross national income (GNI), or at best GDP per capita, as derived from the GDP calculation.

GRSV Blog no. 10
Release date: 04/03/2022
CL Laxmipathi Gowda, V Ramanatha Rao, SV Raghuram Shetty, and MJ Vasudeva Rao

Recently, interest in Natural Farming (NF) has surged, spearheaded by the Government of India (GOI).  The principles of natural farming are rooted in the concepts defined by Surapala’s Vrikshayurveda (1000 CE), the ancient Indian “science of plant life.” In fact, early agriculture anywhere on the globe could be called as natural farming.

Dr Neelam Patel, senior adviser, India’s NITI Aayog, has said that over 0.65 million hectares of agricultural land in 11 states in India is already under this form of natural farming (Indian Express, 27 January 2022). But the figure could be much higher, as most of the low-input agriculture by resource-poor smallholder farmers can be called “natural farming by default”. The GOI’s budget proposals also recommend the adoption of chemical-free NF along the 5 km-wide corridors of the Ganga river basin. Farmers who adopted NF in some states in India (such as Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Sikkim) have claimed higher yields and low cultivation costs; but the validation of those claims is still awaited, in terms of increases in larger-scale production, productivity, and economics, as well as in meeting the needs of environmental sustainability.

The GRSV Experts, especially the economists, further explored the idea of farmers having a say in determining the price of agricultural produce (see “Smallholder farmers in India should have a say in pricing what they produce” GRSV Blog no. 8 https://grsvconsulting.com/smallholder-farmers-in-india-should-have-a-say-in-pricing-what-they-produce/). Summary of these discussions are given below:

While farmers are a key to ending hunger and malnutrition worldwide, they are increasingly facing barriers to profitability, especially the smallholder farmers (SHF), who constitute the most vulnerable section. Some of the policy/institutions /institutional arrangements that directly or indirectly support farmers role in price formation that are presently in vogue are briefly described below.

GRSV Blog no. 9
Release date: 25/06/2021
SV Raghuram Shetty, Paul Senghor, MVK Sivakumar, Sanath K Reddy, CL Laxmipathi Gowda, V Ramanatha Rao, MJ Vasudeva Rao, and Said Silim

The UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 17 specifically addresses the need for global partnerships which utilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology, and resources to support the achievement of the other 16 SDGs, especially in developing countries (https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/). In the past, international cooperation in development focused heavily on multilateral collaboration, involving multilateral institutions and developed and developing countries. Recently, however, there has been increasing emphasis on enhancing South-South cooperation in access to science, technology, and innovation, and to enhance knowledge sharing on mutually agreed terms. South-South cooperation, especially in effective and targeted capacity building and institutional development in the least developed countries, has been given high priority, which calls for more innovative partnerships, with the engagement of both the public and the private sector. We focus here on such collaboration in agricultural research and development between India and Africa.

GRSV Blog no. 8
Release date: 22/04/2021
V. Ramanatha Rao, C.L. Laxmipathi Gowda, S.V.R. Shetty, and M.J. Vasudeva Rao,
Co-founders, Global Research for Development Support Ventures

While smallholder farmers (SHF, defined as owning less that 2 ha of land) constitute a large segment (86%) of the farming community in India, at present they have a negligible role, if at all, in deciding the price of what they produce. In our view, they should be enabled to play a more active role. We present a brief picture of the scenario as it exists, in order to justify our view.