Sustainable Agriculture And Globalization

Agriculture, since its invention and inception, has been the prime and foremost activity of every culture and civilization throughout the history of mankind. Agricultural practices secured the food supply. It also resulted in establishment of farming settlements that subsequently grew in villages, towns, cities, states, countries and empires. Agriculture in India is constitutionally the responsibility of the states rather than the central government. The central government's role is in formulating policy and providing financial resources for agriculture. The government administers prices of essential commodities to protect farmer's interests. It also administers other commodities which are produced by government-controlled companies, like petroleum, coal, nitrogenous fertilizers, etc. From reliable assessments it appears that more than 5 million pre-school children throughout the world die every year from maladies caused or aggravated by malnutrition. The globalization of agriculture represents the very antithesis of sustainability. It is driven by short sighted greed based on corporate profits and the exploitation of both natural and human resources, and it rests on a myopic need to preserve culture, as it has been defined in the past half a century without thought to our biological survival. This book provides deep insight to various dimensions of issues relating to the subject.