Some 800 million people in the world were malnourished even before the food and economic crises hit.  Now a push to confront this longer-term problem is picking up steam. Leaders at recent global gatherings agreed to back a multibillion dollar initiative to boost agriculture and food security in low-income countries. Discussions on the overall design and level of funding are continuing. In September, the G20 asked the World Bank to...

Global economic and financial crisis (2007-2008) coupled with food and fuel crises (2006-2008) has pushed the number of undernourished in the world to 1.02 billion during 2009, This has happened despite international food commodity prices declining from their earlier peaks, finds a newly released report of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO, www.fao.org) titled: The State of Food Insecurity in the World Report 2009: Economic Crises-Impacts and Lessons Learnt....

Loss in food grains estimated at 16 million tonnes  Overall Kharif output can fall by 15 per cent Call for long-term strategy to tackle vagaries of monsoon Erratic monsoon this kharif could reduce the agricultural crop growth to -2 per cent year-on-year, down from an earlier estimate of 1.4 per cent, according to a Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) report released here. The report, “Drought in...

NEW DELHI: Floods that have ravaged parts of southern and western India is likely to hit the grain production in the country, leading to higher prices of essential commodities such as rice, pulses, jowar, bajra and certain category of vegetables. While the extent of the damage caused by the sudden burst of floods in Karnataka, Andhra, Maharashtra and Goa is yet to be assessed, the governments at the Centre and...

The procurement of rice for distribution under the proposed Right to Food scheme has renewed the fears of irreversible depletion of water table in India’s grain producing regions. It is feared that unless more scientific and progressive methods of rice cultivation are used, the otherwise welcome scheme would lead to more sowing of summer paddy leading to more injudicious water use and further soil degradation. Many rural NGOs and agricultural...