Higher support prices for kharif pulses has resulted in a sharp jump in acreage under cultivation and production is estimated to rise to 6 million tonnes in the kharif season of the 2010-11 crop year The support price for wheat is likely to be hiked by a nominal Rs 20 in the rabi season, but the procurement rate for pulses could go up sharply, as the government wants to reduce dependence...

Given the scale of UPA-II's proposed food security programme, getting the recipe right was never going to be easy. But even accounting for their differences, the National Advisory Council (NAC) and the government are having more problems than expected pushing the right to food legislation. Two NAC proposals have been rejected by the ministry for consumer affairs, food and public distribution, with the result that a fresh draft may need...

Thousands of farmers from Saurashtra gathered here on Friday to protest against the Centre’s cotton export policy. The government has fixed a cap of 55 lakh bales for export in 2010-11, even as a record yield of cotton is expected this year. During the convention organised Maha Gujarat Agri Cotton Produce Company (MGACPC) at Shahshri Maidan, the farmers demanded that the export limit should be increased to one crore bales. They...

Sixty-five per cent of hungry people in the world live in Asia, according to a new report on Food Security, which also warns that the gains of the Green Revolution could be at risk due to declining trends in agricultural research and rural investment.The report prepared by a group of researches led by noted agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan, who is also known as the father of India's Green Revolution,...

A committee set up by the government has suggested freeing the prices of urea and inclusion of the fertiliser in the new nutrient-based subsidy scheme to discourage its excessive use, stem soil degradation and reduce government subsidy. The panel, led by former agriculture secretary T Nanda Kumar, also recommended a “comparatively higher level” of subsidy for critical nutrients like sulphur, zinc and boron to make them affordable to farmers.   The nutrient-based subsidy...