One of the key demands of the Right to Food Campaign for the National Food Security Act is to re-introduce nutritious millets to government food programmes like the public distribution system. Millets like bajra, jowar, kodo, kutki and ragi among hundreds of other varieties have sustained communities for close to 10,000 years in India. Yet, they have been marginalized as food crops since the days of the Green Revolution in...

The Centre's decision to raise the minimum support price (MSP) sharply for pulses, moderately for coarse cereals and oil seeds, and not at all for rice and cotton (the nominal hike for rice merely rolls in the bonus offered last year) is right, in the conventional sense. The signal against increasing acreage for rice this kharif is sound, given the huge stocks with the government. The signalling is right, too,...

Indian agriculture was mostly organic before the advent of the Green Revolution. However, the widespread adoption of nutrient-responsive and high-yielding varieties greatly promoted the use of inorganic fertilisers, weedicides and insecticides. The compulsion to grow more for food security has led farmers to overlook food quality norms and an indiscriminate use of natural resources. Based on three principal factors viz., mixed cropping, crop rotation and use of organic fertilizers, the National...

World cereals output is expected to rise this year to near-record highs, swelling overall supplies and putting pressure on already weakened prices, the UN’s food agency said on Thursday. The global wheat output is forecast to fall for the third consecutive year, but at 676.5 million tonnes it would still be close to 2008 record levels, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said, raising its earlier forecast for 2010. Overall cereals output...

India's anxiety over erratic monsoon rains will become more acute as rising incomes and a growing population push up demand for farmed produce faster than supply, turning the nation into a major importer within 5 years. Forecasts of a normal monsoon this year have stirred hopes for smooth supplies and low inflation, reversing setbacks from last year's poor rains. But the country must boost yields if it is to feed...