About 6,348 tons of foodgrain stored in various government outlets across the country were damaged primarily due to storage pest attack and leakages in godowns in 2010-11, a fact which does not go down well for the country's food security. “The foodgrain get damaged due to various reasons such as storage pest attack, leakages in godowns, procurement of poor quality stocks, during movement of stocks, exposure to rains, floods, etc,” Union...

It is time for the National Advisory Council (NAC) to introspect whether its pious thoughts on food security square up to an economic reality check. There are three likely scenarios: (1) universal coverage at 35 kg/per month per family; (2) universal coverage with 25 kg per family per month; and (3) partial coverage (say, to 11 crore families) with 35 kg per family per month. In each case, the implications...

Forty years ago Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan helped rescue the world from growing famine and a deepening gloom over the future of food supplies. Today, public policy projects itself as pro-farmer but it does it half-heartedly, complains Swaminathan. M S Swaminathan, member of the National Advisory Council and father of the Green Revolution says the government's allocation for agriculture is insignificant. Doesn't the Union Budget reflect a new focus on agriculture?...

A section of Congress is set to back the demand of chief ministers of BJP and other Opposition-ruled states to reject the Seeds Bill, 2010, in its present form. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, spearheading the campaign against the bill, has told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar that the bill, whose avowed purpose is to facilitate production and supply of seeds of quality, will put the peasantry...

Indian agriculture needs Rs 1,08,000 crore to fight climate change in the next five years to ensure food for all at a reasonable price by 2020. To prevent food catastrophe, the agriculture ministry has asked the funds for implementing National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture under the Prime Minister's National Action Plan on Climate Change. Over 60% of the money will be spent on developing new technologies, crop varieties and new practices...