Agriculture

Severe air pollution in several Chinese provinces has triggered public outrage and prompted local governments to take action against the traditional burning of straw that has been pinpointed as the "arch-culprit."

Pakistan's 44 per cent hike in outlay for atomic energy in its 2012–2013 budget contrasts with a massive drop in funds for crop research and overshadows a much smaller hike in overall allocation for science.    Despite drawing international attention in the past two years to its increased vulnerability to climate change, Pakistan allocated a meager 135 million Pakistani rupees (USD 1.43 million) to its newly formed climate change ministry – a fraction of the USD416 million given to the atomic energy sector in the budget presented on 1 June.

China's sustainable development faces greater challenges ranging from a fragile natural ecological environment to resource constraints, senior Chinese officials said ahead of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development to be held in Rio de Janeiro.

Fujitsu of Japan is offering to allow the Thai government to use its innovative environment monitoring system to ease pollution at Map Ta Phut industrial estate through a pilot project.

The Philippine Supreme Court is expected to decide shortly whether to accept a demand from the environmental group Greenpeace to stop the field testing of genetically-modified (GM) eggplant, on the grounds that the potential impact on other eggplant varieties has not been adequately assessed.

The Chinese government plans to allocate 500 billion yuan (USD79 billion) for the prevention and control of water pollution in major drainage areas from 2011 to 2015, up from 300 billion yuan for the previous five-year period, according to Xinhua.

Reports of formaldehyde-tainted Chinese cabbage in east China's Shandong province, the country's largest vegetable production base, have exposed some clandestine market practices and triggered a new wave of food safety concerns, according to Xinhua.

WWF is urging investors to do more to promote sustainable palm oil, backed by findings from a new survey released during a high-level meeting of investors and producers in Singapore.

With the world’s human population now more than seven billion – and the prospect of nine billion by 2050 – the focus on agricultural yields is greater than ever. A comprehensive new analysis, published in Nature, is therefore bound to inflame the debate over organic versus chemically enhanced farming methods. Proponents of organic farming believe it is the best way to feed the world’s population without destroying the environment. In terms of productivity, however, the new paper comes down squarely on the side of conventional farming that uses man-made fertilizer and pesticides but the authors concede organic farming works quite well for some crops.