NEWS


FOOD AND AGRICULTURE Killing fields A. NAIR


Tragically, more than 300,000 Indian farmers committed suicide between 1995 and 2015. The latest, 2015, figures show a jump of 41% over the previous year.


Growing levels of personal debt are


a factor in many farmer suicides. There are many causes, with the high cost of chemicals, fertilisers and GM also held by many as partly to blame. GM seeds, for example, often cost nearly twice as much as ordinary ones. Amidst the celebration of Earth Day on 22 April 2017, farmers from India, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as regional organisations such as the Pesticide Action Network Asia Pacific, Asian Peasants Coalition and GRAIN, called for rejection of technologies including GM crops such as Golden Rice, accused of threatening the lives and livelihood of Asian farmers. Currently, Bt-cotton remains the


only commercially cultivated GM crop in India, but several others are in the process of commercialisation. However, Narasimha Reddy Donthi of the Pesticide Action Network India, points to both increased pest resistance and cotton production costs since it was


introduced in 2002. The organisation says it has also observed lots of non- germinating Bt cotton seeds, with no compensation from private seed companies. Farmer misuse of the technology,


meanwhile, is another issue pinpointed as exacerbating the resistance problems. However, the Central Institute for


Cotton Research in Nagpur, Maharashtra notes that: ‘It is unlikely that cultivation of Bt cotton in Vidarbha region [of Maharashtra] could be linked in any way to instances of farmers suicides.’ This despite the Institute’s own findings explaining how pests have been rapidly developing resistance to the toxins in Bt cotton, defeating its purpose (Current Science, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jegh.2016.03.003). Soil degradation and erosion


are yet another factor making farmer livelihoods more difficult. Ranjan Bhattacharyya, of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi says the causes are excessive tillage, ‘unbalanced’ use of inorganic fertilisers, pesticide overuse, inadequate crop residue and/or organic carbon inputs, and poor crop cycle planning. ‘A major imbalance is in the over-use of fertilisers and less use of organic residues,’ he says, adding that soil degradation in India is widespread (Sustainability, doi:10.3390/su7043528). India is the fourth largest producer of agrochemicals globally, after the US, Japan and China; it imports around $925m of technical pesticides, intermediaries and finished products from China. Meanwhile, credit rating agency ICRA warns the price of agrochemicals in India has soared by more than 20% and look set to rise even higher. The Indian government


reported over 12,000 suicides in the agriculture sector every year since 2013, despite a multi-pronged approach to improve income and social security of farmers. There has been a recorded


increase of 40-46% in the number of farmer suicides across India, since 2014.


COMMENT


Cyber-security threat


Jesse Klebba | CEO, Urgent Technology


The cyber-breach of the UK NHS earlier in 2017, which froze computers in hospitals across the country, highlighted the growing problem of cyber-attacks and corporate espionage. The UK government’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2017, published in April, found that almost half (46%) of all UK businesses experienced at least one cyber-security breach or attack in the previous 12 months, rising to 66% among medium-sized firms and 68% for large firms. Yet despite this threat, many businesses still do not


have basic cyber-security protection. Two thirds do not have specific board members responsible for this area, while just 20% had staff attend any form of cyber-security training in the last 12 months, and just a third have a formal policy. Cyber-hacking is no longer the sole concern of the IT


department; it is an assault on the entire organisation, from the C-Suite, to human resources (HR) and facilities management (FM). As the lynchpin behind the maintenance of a building’s operational integrity, today’s FM plays an important role in protecting systems against hackers as well as meeting the latest regulatory standards. A new paper by facilities maintenance and asset


management software provider Urgent Technology analyses how organisations can better protect themselves against cyber-attacks. It explains how these divisions can work together to become the guardians of an organisation’s security and data, covering the following areas. A particular area of vulnerability is access by end users


to any part of the network. Employee security training should educate staff on what habits could compromise organisational security and enable hackers to exploit the Building Automation Systems (BAS) or networked systems. Ignoring the threat of cyber-breaches could have far


reaching consequences, including physical damage to equipment or infrastructure, theft of high value property, loss of revenue and loss of customer confidence. The growing utilisation of the Internet of Things (IoT),


which connects devices throughout a building or even an entire city, brings many operational benefits by helping to automate building services, but also opens up the real risk of organisations being hacked through their Building Management Systems (BMS). It’s important to establish a best practice strategy to


secure data in the Cloud, protect data integrity while in transit over the internet and securely provision devices. With the introduction of GDPR, organisations are not only tasked with keeping personal data up-to-date, safe and confidential, but also for ensuring correct access protocols are observed. The responsibility for data security has traditionally


tended to be viewed as the remit of the IT department. However, FMs have a crucial role to play alongside the IT division. The Cyber-threat and the FM solution white paper can be downloaded for free at: https://urgtech.com/cyber- threat-whitepaper/


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