At a time when economic wisdom is seen as lying in allowing unrestrained play of economic power and cutting social sector spending, here is a report emphasising the economic sense in addressing hunger, especially child malnutrition. It also brings out the positive impact of employment guarantee scheme, which has been a thrust area of the UPA government but has seen a cut in allocation in Budget proposals for 2012-13. The report...

-Bloomberg   World food prices will drop this year as increase in unemployment in developing and developed countries slows growth in demand, the United Nations said.   “We have started to see a decline in food prices,” Jose Graziano da Silva, director general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, said at a conference in Hanoi on Thursday. World economic expansion will slow to 3.3% this year from 3.8% in 2011, according to the International...

In this year's budget, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has essentially tried to consolidate the gains from the initiatives he had launched during the previous two budgets. Thus, in agriculture there is no new initiative except increasing the target for agricultural credit to Rs.5,75,000 crore during 2012-13. This represents an increase of over Rs.1,00,000 crore from last year. The interest rate of four per cent recommended by the National Commission...

-The Pioneer The mega exercise of wheat procurement from farmers on support price will get underway from March 15 in Madhya Pradesh. Till May 20, about 65 lakh metric tonne of wheat will be purchased from farmers in 67 days at the rate of about one lakh metric tonne per day. Under the scheme, e-procurement system has been adopted for the first time in the State in order to prevent any irregularity...

A report on ‘State of Indian Agriculture 2011-12’, tabled in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, has called for reforms to ensure that the sector grows in tandem with the overall GDP of the country. The report says that “achieving an 8-9% rate of growth in the overall GDP may not deliver much in terms of poverty reduction unless agricultural growth accelerates”. Admitting that the sector has undergone ‘significant structural changes’ in...