In the Neotropics the predominant pathway to intensify productivity is generally thought to be to convert grasslands to sown pastures, mostly in monoculture. This article examines how above-ground net primary productivity (ANPP) in semi-natural grasslands and sown pastures in Central America respond to rainfall by: (i) assessing the relationships between ANPP and accumulated rainfall and indices of rainfall distribution, (ii) evaluating the variability of ANPP between and within seasons, and (iii) estimating the temporal stability of ANPP.

The objective of the study was to assess the effects of feeding Bt MON810 maize to pigs for 110 days on the intestinal microbiota.

In the present study an estimation of livestock enteric CH4 emission has been made from feeding systems (diets) for different animal functions (maintenance, production and growth) prevailing in different agroecological regions (AERs) of India using livestock population 2003. Estimations comprised of dietary intake, digestibility and CH4 emission factors for ruminant species of different age groups determined from feeding systems/diets. Methane production (ml g–1) from production diets in animal species tended to be more than growth and maintenance diets.

Utsa Patnaik’s new critique of our work on food and nutrition is wholly unconvincing. Her analysis of international patterns of “total” cereal consumption, interesting as it may be, does not invalidate anything we wrote, and certainly does not indict us of any “fallacies”. And her attempt to demonstrate that the decline of cereal intake in India reflects “severe demand-deflation for the majority of the population” is based on a circular argument.

The indiscriminate ingestive behavior of cattle predisposes them to accidental swallowing of both penerating and non penetrating foreign bodies that settle in the reticulum and rumen most of the times. As a result of extensive occupation of grazing land by human inhabitants there is dearth of the same for cattle. Further, reduction in space in the urban areas has pushed the cattle population to fend themselves in the streets.