The Food and Agricultural Organization said Wednesday that the world faces a "food price shock" after the agency's benchmark index of farm commodities prices shot up last month, exceeding the levels of the 2007-08 food crisis. The warning from the U.N. body comes as inflation is becoming an increasing economic and political challenge in developing countries, including China and India, and is starting to emerge as a potential problem in developed...

The US government was advised by its officials to start a military-style trade war against European countries that oppose GM crop cultivation, a new Wikileak release by the UK-based newspaper Guardian has shown. The US embassy in Paris in 2007, when France moved to ban GM Corn by Monsanto, recommended that the US "calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility,...

The Indian economy is moving back into the fast lane, with agriculture playing a leading role. A new financial review presented by the government in mid-December anticipated economic growth of up to 9% for the year to March 2011, and forecasters believe double-digit expansion is on the cards for later in the year. "Faster growth is expected to continue as agriculture recovers sharply from last year's drought and inflation starts to...

Safai karmacharis are set to end their two-decade-long movement for a life of dignity on a victorious note. DECEMBER 31, 2010. As revellers across the world prepare to celebrate the end of the first decade of the new millennium and the start of a new year, a million women across India will be celebrating not the end of a calendar year but the end of a centuries-old degrading and inhuman...

From onions, sugar and coconuts, to tea, pulses, rice and spices, all kitchen ingredients will remain expensive in the New Year as unseasonal rains beyond the monsoon wipe out India’s major crops. Worse, rains are hampering the sowing of winter wheat, coarse grains and oilseeds, putting further pressure on food inflation that touched a two-and-a-half month high at 14.44% on Thursday. Across the country, farmers are helplessly watching their fields turn into...