The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), the government's main advisory body on pricing policy for farm produce, has favoured a subsidy mechanism to encourage use of hybrid rice varieties. The commission's views are likely to be a part of the recommendations it plans to send to the government on pricing of farm produce. "China has gone ahead in hybrid rice and around 63 per cent of its total area is...

FAO's first forecast for world wheat production in 2011 stands at 676 million tonnes, representing a growth of 3.4 percent from 2010, the March 2011 edition of the Crop Prospects and Food Situation report said today. This level would still be below the bumper harvests in 2008 and 2009. Wheat plantings in many countries have increased or are expected to increase this year in response to strong prices, while yield recoveries...

The government will certainly not indulge in self congratulation for agriculture recording a growth of 5.4 per cent to 232.07 million tonnes in 2010-11 as this is happening on a low production base of 218.11 million tonnes last year when the country experienced the worst south-west monsoon since 1972. In fact, the major concern of the government is farm sector’s niggardly growth of 2.8 per cent in the first four...

India's vegetables production is estimated to rise by 6 per cent in 2010-11 and recent high prices of onion were mainly on the back of lower and delayed arrivals in markets caused by initial damage to the crop due to unseasonal rain, Parliament was informed today. Vegetable production in India is estimated to touch 141.3 million tonnes in 2010-11, against 133.5 million tonnes in 2009-10, Minister of State for Agriculture Arun...

Prof Abhijit Sen, member of the Planning Commission, discusses Budget provisions related to the agriculture sector in an interview with Rajesh Bhayani and Sanjeeb Mukherjee. Sen feels, futures trading in essentials commodities like wheat and rice should not be allowed. According to him, India should follow China in having an agency for procuring commodities from the global market. There seems to a renewed focus in this Budget on ancillary items of...