A projected global population of 9 billion concentrated mostly in the developing world and a higher income level alone are enough to put pressure on world’s supply of food grains. But with changes in temperature levels and rainfall pattern beyond an acceptable limit on account of climate change, the pressures on food prices can be expected to enormous. World prices of staple food grains are projected to rise from anywhere...

The Food Corporation of India is looking to augment its storage capacity in the north-east region to ensure timely supplies for the government’s public distribution system. “Inadequate storage facility in the north-east region creates problems in ensuring regular supplies to the PDS (public distribution system),” Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar told ET. The current storage capacity of the government’s top grain management agency in the north-eastern states is 4.58 lakh...

A parliamentary committee has asked the government to consider incentivising private players to set up grain storage facilities as it prepares to implement the right to food. The government will require around 620 lakh tonnes of foodgrain annually to implement the food security law. The official procurement stood at 539.75 lakh tonnes in the recent marketing year. “(The) government should provide soft loans at affordable rates and subsidies to private players to...

The Global Hunger Index report paints a gloomy picture of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. WITH the deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals just five years away, the 2010 Global Hunger Index report prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) paints a gloomy picture of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Some 29 countries in these regions, it says, have levels of hunger that are alarming or extremely alarming....

India’s rice output is likely to rise 12.36 per cent this year, on favourable pattern of monsoon and higher acreage area, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) latest food review forecast released yesterday. The agency estimated India’s total milled rice output at 100 million tonnes (mt) this year, as against 89 mt the previous year. Global rice production is estimated to reach 467 mt, compared with 472...