Stolen treasures

ETHIOPIA, one of the oldest of farm civilisations, has been mercilessly ravaged by war and famine. Fortunately, Valiant & Khan's Treasures of Ethiopia spares the viewer the stereotypical images of hollow-eyed children and food convoys. Instead, it wanders into the countryside to look at its plant treasures. Covering about a dozen villages, the film sends a powerful message -- crop diversity is a survival kit for the Ethiopian farmers. And this is being threatened by the transnational seed corporations.

Forecasting famine

Scientists trying to accurately forecast droughts in Zimbabwe have found that the country's maize production is more dependent on El Nino -- a warm water current that occurs in the Pacific Ocean and causes climate variability in the tropics and the sub-tropics -- than it is on rainfall (Nature, Vol 370, No 6486).

Easing the exodus

Tanzanian farmers need no longer flee to the cities in search of greener pastures. The spectre of mass migration from rural areas has been haunting the nation ever since it was hit by a severe crop failure early this year due to drought in its northern highlands and the late arrival of rains in the southern parts of the country. The 400,000 refugees from neighbouring Rwanda further deepened the crisis.

Human-made drought hits farmers

FRUIT and vegetable farmers in California, USA, are experiencing one of the driest seasons of the century, not because of paltry rains but due to a shortsighted official policy. A new ruling has reined back billions of gallons of water in rivers and streams to protect the dwindling supply of winter-run salmon and other fish, which have been ravaged by the Central Valley water projects. As a result, the farmers are receiving only a fraction of the water they normally receive from California's mountain reservoirs.

An empire withers away

THE AKKADIAN empire flourished on the banks of Euphrates in Iraq, from 2300 BC to 2200 BC. Though the reason for its sudden collapse has long puzzled archaeologists, Harvey Weiss and his colleagues at Yale University in USA now say it literally dried up and withered away. The archaeologists base their claim on excavations in Akkadian sites in northern Mesopotamia, historical records of population movements preserved in clay tablets, and an analysis of soil moisture dating back to that era.

Desertification control lacks efficiency

In 1977, the UN organised a conference on desertification in which a resolution was passed to start a fund for desertification control. Besides, UNEP also started a desertification programme, but most industrialised countries showed no interest in this. Do you think there has been a change in their perception? Interviewee:  BO Kjellen

Drought damage

EVEN AS the midwestern states in USA are awash with flood waters, farmers in the southeast are contending with a severe drought and face agricultural losses that have already hit $800 million in the Carolinas and Georgia. US department of agriculture authorities say the worst-hit crops in the tri-state area, which has been in the grip of drought for months, are maize, soya bean, peanut, tobacco and cotton as well as poultry and livestock.

Carving oases in drought-prone Kutch

IN THE treeless, barren and rocky district of Kutch in Gujarat, the Shree Vivakanand Research and Training Institute (VRTI), or the sanstha as it is known locally, has carved a name for itself in drought relief and ecological regeneration activity.

Bacteria teach crops how to endure drought

BUGS IN one's body usually mean aches and pains, but researchers studying how some bacteria exist safely in the large intestine of humans by adapting to water-scarce conditions, may come up with clues to new varieties of drought-resistant crops that could flourish in arid regions.

A self-sacrificing tree

KHEJRI (Prosopis cineraria) is nature's best gift to the farmers of Rajasthan and Haryana for it not only thrives in drought conditions and in poor soils, but also encourages the growth of crops planted near it if its lateral roots are pruned (Changing Villages, Vol 12, No 1).