DRASTIC environmental changes are becoming a threat to agriculture, especially in less developed countries, and it may affect the food security. This concern was shared in a seminar organised by the Rohtak district unit of All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) on June 5. Addressing the seminar on the occasion of World Environment Day, Dr Rajender Chaudhary, a former professor of economics, said that the non-renewable natural resources were being over- exploited for extracting more and more profits, resulting in drastic climatic and environmental changes and thus posing a threat to the flora and fauna. He said that environment protection was not against development; rather sustainable development was feasible only by saving the environment. Agriculture scientist Dr M S Narwal explained that the rise and fall in average temperatures with global warming was bound to adversely affect our crop production because of vulnerability of our varieties to specific agro-climatic conditions. He warned the farmers to be more vigilant against traps of certain companies who usually cheat them by offering attractive compensations and lure them in the face of frequent crop damages due to natural calamities. AIKS state vice president Inderjit Singh accused the rich and developed countries of causing maximum damage to the global environment while imposing stringent conditionalities on the poorer, developing nations to compensate for the environmental losses. Local farmers from various villages of the district told how their lands were being made barren due to faulty planning, especially in the matter of poor maintenance of drains. Dr Prem Singh Dahiya, a former senior scientist at the Central Potato Research Centre in Shimla, stated that the pollution of environment and ecology has become a global phenomenon and that the polluters should be made to pay the cost also.