-The Hindu It is ad hoc, hurts farmers’ incomes, and may not impact inflation much  Over the last month, the government has banned the export of wheat and imposed quantitative restrictions on outbound sugar shipments. The wheat export ban came within days of a push to enhance India’s wheat supplies to the rest of the world after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This is a time of persistently high inflation, spurred by rising...

-United Nations News Countries are expected to spend a staggering $1.8 trillion importing food they need this year; this would be a new world record but worryingly, it’s going to buy them less food, not more. That’s according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which on Thursday suggested that for some countries, the situation potentially heralded “an end of their resilience to higher prices”. Ever-higher fixed costs for farmers of so-called...

-United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) A prolonged and deadly heatwave has hit large swaths of India and Pakistan affecting hundreds of millions of people and sparking food and energy shortages. Experts say the extreme heat is a grim preview of what the climate crisis has in store for a region home to over 1 billion people. Temperatures in India’s capital and parts of Pakistan have at times reached close to 50°C, killing...

-NetworkIdeas.org Central banks all over the capitalist world are raising, or are about to raise, interest rates as a means of countering the currently rampant inflation, which is certain to push a world economy that is barely recovering from the effect of the pandemic, back towards stagnation and greater unemployment. Of course the Federal Reserve Board of the US which sets the standard in this respect for all other central banks, claims...

-Hindustan Times Unseasonal rains also damaged lemon crops during the flowering stage in several states in January and then, a heatwave while March-April harvesting crimped output. In April, prices leapt to unseen levels, reaching up to ₹200 a kilo. New Delhi: Extreme weather that scientists have linked to climate change has hit output of several crops this year, making fruits and vegetables costlier. The average retail price of tomatoes, a basic ingredient of...