-The Business Standard Govt's unbalanced food policy has disastrous results Consider the following discrepancies in the farm sector. The country is now the world’s largest exporter of rice, a crop grown with huge quantities of scarce water and heavily subsidised fertilisers. At the same time, it is the leading importer of pulses, which require very little water to grow and fortify the land with nitrogen to reduce the fertiliser need even...

-The Economic Times At a time when the Rangarajan committee is giving final touches to its recommendations on sugar deregularisation, The Union food ministry has come up with two proposals for fixing new retail price of sugar sold in ration shops (levy sugar) to reduce the food subsidy bill. According to the first proposal, the food ministry has recommended to free up the prices of levy sugar and allow state governments to...

-CNN-IBN With deficient monsoon rains throughout the country so far, experts have now warned that the drought situation can no longer be ignored and that it is the time to act. Food Minister KV Thomas admitted on Tuesday that the situation is worrisome and that the government will have to take measures to check hoarding as deficient rainfall will lead to crop failure. Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP) Chairman Ashok...

Giving right to food is not enough to deliver food, say speakers at a conference on food security Agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan has called for setting up a body headed by the prime minister for effective execution of the National Food Security Bill (NFSB) once it is enacted. All chief ministers should be members of this board, he added. NFSB was cleared by the Union Cabinet and introduced in Parliament in...

The dreaded El Niño weather phenomenon is set to appear during the second half of the southwest monsoon, which may cause less-than-expected rains in August and September. El Niño had earlier hit the Indian monsoon in 2009, when the country faced a severe drought. This time, its impact is not clear as of now, but if there are excessive breaks in the monsoon, crops of paddy, oilseeds and pulses could...