-The United Nations Global food prices rose overall last month for the first time in six months, demonstrating the volatility of international food markets, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported today. The FAO Food Price Index rose by four points or nearly two per cent to a measure of 214 points in January, with the price of oils increasing the most, followed by cereals, sugar, dairy products and meat. This...

West Bengal: An agrarian crisis looms over the State as farmers commit suicide in spite of a bumper crop. THE topic of suicide figured repeatedly in Safar Molla's conversations with his neighbours a few days before his death. The 18-year-old marginal farmer from Kaltikuri village in Bardhaman district's Bhatar block talked about it quite casually, in fact even jocularly. Everybody in the village knew he was up to his neck in...

If the Consumer Affairs Ministry had its say, imported food grains and pulses containing hazardous foreign matter would have made its way on to the Indian platter. In fact, import of damaged grains too would have been a possibility - on the pretext of the country witnessing inadequate food grains’ production. The Ministry, besides a number of importers, had called for a relaxation in the existing set norms for the import...

If the combined Opposition had sat down for weeks so as to find an issue to embarrass the UPA Government and make it a laughing stock before the whole country, they could not have thought of a better issue than the free gift presented to it by the UPA Government by initially insisting that it had irrevocably decided to allow the entry of multi-brand retail leader superstores like Walmart, USA...

India is likely to see record foodgrain production in the current year on good rains, the second advance estimate of the agriculture ministry showed on Friday. Output of total foodgrains comprising rice, wheat, coarse cereals and pulses was seen at 250.42 million tonnes (mt) in the July-June crop year of 2011-12, up 2.3% from the year-ago 244.78 mt, the data showed. This is significant as the optimistic projection comes just ahead of...