There is some respite expected for India in terms of prices of imported commodities. This may ease the depletion of its foreign exchange reserves. The country has faced a widening of its merchandise trade deficit from US$ -17.91 billion to US$ -26.91 billion between October 2021 and October 2022. The commodity price data provided by the World Bank in December 2022 (termed as The Pink Sheet) shows that energy prices plummeted by...

-Hindustan Times Increasing spells of summer heatwave in northwestern India, thought to be linked to climate change, are hurting milk productivity, or output per cattle, while raising costs of production for farmers. Increasing spells of summer heatwave in northwestern India, thought to be linked to climate change, are hurting milk productivity, or output per cattle, while raising costs of production for farmers, a study by the flagship National Dairy Research Institute has...

-India.mongabay.com * After the drop in wheat production due to heat waves, extreme weather events have now cast a shadow on rice production, which is likely to drop beyond centre’s initial 6% loss estimate. * In six years (2015-21), the country lost 33.9 million hectares of the cropped area due to floods and excess rains and 35 million hectares due to drought, which are likely to intensify as various studies predict. * Centre...

-The Hindu Coffee cultivation is becoming an increasingly loss-making proposition in India. Already weighed down by the high cost of inputs and production as well as labour shortage, the industry is now also affected by changes in climate patterns, reports  Mini Tejaswi from Karnataka’s coffee heartland Bose Mandanna was devastated when torrential rains in September thrashed the coffee plants in his plantation and left tender berries and leaves strewn everywhere. The plants...

-The Hindu Business Line Millets such as ragi deserve higher support prices as they are important for nutrition and water efficiency  The CACP recommendations on Minimum Support Prices (MSP) for the mandated six Rabi crops — wheat, barley, gram, lentil, rapeseed and mustard, and safflower — are arrived by considering several factors. These include the Cost of production, supply and demand situation of various crops in domestic and global markets, domestic and world...