India could face serious problems in providing food security, if the present gap between the consumption and production of pulses is not filled, according to a report by industry body Assocham. "If the production of pulses in the largest producing nation dips, it becomes difficult for the global markets to fill up the gap," Assocham said in a statement today. India is world's largest producer and consumer of pulses. However, still there...

In recent years, the agricultural growth rate has tended to be lower than the population growth rate. This year, the former is nearing the target of 4%. But we still have a very large percentage of undernourished children, women and men. Poverty and destitution also remain stubborn. The Indian food security enigma rises from the mismatch between the grain mountains and the hungry millions. What are the prospects for ensuring...

If dal roti went out of reach for the aam admi in 2009, vegetables and onion prices brought tears towards the end of 2010 and with food inflation touching a high of 14.44 per cent for the week ending December 18, the New Year did not ring in any respite from high food prices. The sudden increase of Rs.3 per litre in the price of petrol in December — the sixth...

Prof Shenggen Fan, Director General, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington DC, said that hunger and malnutrition continued to be challenging problems among 29 countries of the world, and India was one of them. As such, food and nutrition availability should be the major development goals in the national policy of these developing nations. Delivering a special lecture on the second day of the 93rd annual conference of the Indian...

In more ways than one the calendar year 2010 would go down the memory lane as a watershed year for the food and agriculture front in the country which recorded unprecedented growth rate of 4.4 per cent in July-September quarter but by December unprecedented price hike of essential food items especially left consumers in tears.   As the year comes to an end, an embattled government and the Union agriculture ministry stood...