Word: rural
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...local government sent a construction team to Thakare's farm last year to dig the 10-ft.-deep (3 m) pond, financing the $600 investment with funds from a new program to support local agriculture. Strategically located in the path of runoff rainwater, the pond - a common feature of rural-resource management - collects water from the monsoon rains that would otherwise have just been wasted. By capturing and storing rainwater, the pond helps to fill the farm's wells. With a more reliable supply of water, Thakare's productivity soared. Not only did he plant his usual summer cotton crop...
...crushing recession are causing a dramatic shift in world economic policy in favor of greater support for agriculture. Farmers like Thakare are being showered with more aid and investment by governments and development agencies than they have in decades in a renewed global quest for food security and rural development. The effort is still in its early stages, and some promises made have yet to be translated into real results. Some programs already in place may prove to be flawed. But a new commitment to agriculture by the global community is clearly emerging. The latest G-8 summit...
...food crisis spurred global leaders into action. "There seems to be an awareness that [food security] is one of the fundamental issues in the world that has to be dealt with," says Christopher Delgado, policy adviser on agriculture and rural development at the World Bank in Washington. In a July report, a committee of British parliamentarians called on their government to invest in agricultural research and encourage local farmers to grow more fruit and other produce. The U.S., which traditionally provisioned food aid from American grain surpluses to help needy nations, is moving toward investing in farm sectors around...
...renewed focus on the farm is being driven by more than fear. Development experts believe a new approach to farming is crucial in order to lift up the world's remaining poor, 75% of whom live in rural areas. Swayed by the success of East Asia, the primary poverty-fighting method favored by many policymakers was to get farmers off their farms and into modern jobs in factories and urban centers. But that strategy has proven insufficient. Income levels in the countryside badly trail those in cities in many countries, while the FAO estimates that the number of poor going...
...Familia has established a well organized and well enforced distribution system in its key U.S. markets, the sort of rural and suburban communities where meth has taken greatest hold in the U.S. "They set up in houses in middle-class suburbs," says Benson. "The only thing missing is the white picket fences." Those homes, where agents usually find large caches of automatic rifles and pistols, can also be scenes of violent kidnappings, beatings and murders. Last year a man abducted and badly beaten by Mexican traffickers because he owed them money was rescued by police in an Atlanta suburb just...