Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set an ambitious target of 100,000 MW of solar power capacity to be achieved by 2022, when India celebrates 75 years of her independence. This is a grand vision for ushering in a sort of revolution in clean energy in India in the next six years. In a country that generates more than 60 percent of its power by burning coal, and where air quality is fast worsening in several Indian cities, the need for clean energy cannot be overstated. Interestingly, Prime Minister Modi has also set another ambitious target of doubling farmers'
incomes by 2022!
The uppermost question in everyone's mind is: can these targets be achieved by 2022? This is particularly so when the current solar power capacity in the country has just touched 8000 MW by July end, 2016, and no country in the world has such an ambitious target as India has set out for 2022. On farmers' real incomes, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in the recent past (FY2003 to FY 2013) has been mere 3.5 percent; and doubling these incomes by 2022 would mean increasing this CAGR from 3.5 percent to more than 12 percent.
With numerous challenges hindering smallholders’ adoption of externally developed technologies, it is often argued that farmer innovation can play an essential role in rural livelihoods. Yet a rigorous assessment of the impact of farmer innovation is lacking. We address this issue by analysing the effect of farmer innovation on household welfare, measured by income, consumption expenditure, and food security. Using household survey data from northern Ghana and applying endogenous switching regression, we find that farmer innovation significantly increases household income and consumption expenditure for innovators. It also contributes significantly to the reduction of food insecurity among innovative households by increasing household food consumption expenditure, decreasing the duration of food shortage, and reducing the severity of hunger. However, we find that the positive productivity and income effects of farmer innovation do not significantly translate into nutritious diet, measured by household dietary diversity.
Our findings, based on satellite imagery data, show that land degradation hotspots cover about 30% of the global land area, where about 3.2 billion people reside.
Grassland areas experienced the most severe degradation. A third of the global grasslands and a quarter of croplands and about 29% of forest mosaics with shrubs and grasslands. Unlike many past studies, the present study shows that land degradation is a global problem occurring in both developed and developing countries as well as in tropical and temperate regions. Ground-truthing data in our six case-study countries showed a high degree of congruity between satellite imagery data and community perceptions of land degradation, and an intermediate congruity on areas that experienced land improvement – suggesting our land degradation results are robust.
Ethiopia’s energy sector faces critical challenges to meeting steadily increasing demand given limited infrastructure, heavy reliance on hydroelectric power, and underdevelopment of alternative energy resources. The main aim of this paper is to investigate optimal least-cost investment decisions for integrated energy source diversification. We seek to contribute to the relevant literature by paying particular attention to the role of public policy for promoting renewable energy investment and to better understand future energy security implication of various uncertainties. Dynamic linear programming model created using General Algebraic Modelling Systems (GAMS) software was used to explore the national energy security implications of uncertainties associated with technological and efficiency innovations, and climate change or drought scenarios. To cope with the impacts of drought on hydroelectric power production Ethiopia would need to invest in the development of alternative energy resources. This would improve sustainability and reliability, but these changes would also increase production costs.