India is the still by and large vegetarian in dietary habit and heavily depends upon vegetative source to meet out its daily protein requirement. India is bound to be global leader in terms of production and consumer of pulses. Since, India is leading importer of pulses, production of pulse/ legume crops has been stagnant over the years. Consequent upon this there is widening gap between demand and supply. About 20 % of the total pulses demands are met by imports only. Apart from legumes fix atmospheric ‘N’ in readily available form to the upcoming succeeding crop.

Heavy metal pollution is one of the major problems of lakes and wetlands all over world. It is responsible for causing serious threats to flora and fauna especially humans. Kunthbyog is natural freshwater, mid altitude lake situated at Rewalsar town, Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh, India 1750 meter above mean sea level. Study was conducted in (2011-2012) to find out heavy metal contaminations and their seasonal variations in lake, if any. Water samples were analyzed for water quality appraisal of lake by inductively coupled plasma emission spectrophotometer (ICP-ES).

The Harvest of Hope initiative is a vegetable box scheme in Cape Town, South Africa, set up as a social enterprise by a local NGO. By promoting ecological urban farming, Abalimi Bezekhaya (meaning ‘Farmers of Home’ in Xhosa) improves income and household food security, and empowers disadvantaged households by building their confidence and capacities in farming. Building a sense of place and strengthening community ties, neither so common in South Africa’s urban areas, are keys for success of this approach.

As cities continue to expand and ever more people migrate to urban areas, current unsustainable patterns of urbanisation and ineffective policies are no longer acceptable. The typical approaches that maintain the separation between rural and urban neglect all of the ways that connect both worlds. And nowhere else are rural and urban areas more linked than within the food system.

Original Source

This study was conducted to determine the concentration of heavy metals Lead (Pb), Cadmium (Cd), Arsenic (As) and Copper (Cu) in ten vegetables. The purpose of this study was to study the Heavy metal content i.e. Pb, Cd, As and Cu in vegetables irrigated by Panjara River and to analyze the level of heavy metals by the different vegetables, for this study four areas were selected around the Dhulia urban region. Each area was situated near the bank of Panjara River. The vegetable samples from four different sites were collected and digested by using tri-acid digestion method.

Nearly 60 years ago thalidomide was prescribed to treat morning sickness in pregnant women. What followed was the biggest man-made medical disaster ever, where over 10,000 children were born with a range of severe and debilitating malformations. Despite this, the drug is now used successfully to treat a range of adult conditions, including multiple myeloma and complications of leprosy. Tragically, a new generation of thalidomide damaged children has been identified in Brazil. Yet, how thalidomide caused its devastating effects in the forming embryo remains unclear.

Surveys and interviews were used to understand community resilience in forest-dependent communities facing climate change in Cameroon. Surveys of 232 individuals showed a diversity of formal and informal institutions that relate to most aspects of rural life. Although direct activities related to climate change adaptation were limited, the activities and density of membership in rural local institutions could increase the community’s adaptive capacity.

Many irrigation systems are special cases of common-pool resources (CPRs) in which some users have preferential access to the resource, which in theory aggravates collective action challenges such as the under-provision of necessary infrastructure as a result of unequal appropriation of water resources. We present experimental evidence based on an irrigation game played in communities that are dependent on one of the largest contiguous irrigation network: the Indus basin irrigation system in Punjab, Pakistan.

Climate change is putting infrastructure, food supply, water resources, ecosystems, and human health at risk. These risks will be exacerbated depending on the degree of additional greenhouse gas emissions. Urgent action is needed to limit the severity of impacts associated with further warming. British Columbia (BC) has taken action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from carbon-based fuels by introducing a carbon tax in 2008. As an innovative approach to climate change mitigation, especially in North America, studies evaluating its effectiveness are valuable.

Anthropologists and ecologists investigating the dialectical relationship between human environments and the cultural practices that shape and are shaped by them have been talking past each other for too long: the one looking purely at metaphor and the other purely at function. Our mixed-method data analysis set out to explore whether it was possible to determine empirically the human health and conservation value of the local Malagasy taboo system.