Potato farmers Madhusudan Mondal and Lakshman Adak, in their mid-50s, live 15km apart in West Bengal’s Hooghly district. Both have produced a bumper crop this year, but that has meant different things for Mondal and Adak. Mondal earned around Rs3.5 lakh selling 150 tonnes of potatoes to PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt. Ltd, having signed a contract with the maker of carbonated beverages and Frito-Lay chips to sell his produce to it...
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Hot potatoes
It is not just the irony. Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh had recently over-ruled the clearance by his ministry’s Genetic Engineering Approval Committee for the cultivation of Bt brinjal, thereby placing an indefinite moratorium on this genetically modified vegetable. But the Philippines, considered a pioneer in food research, have chosen to rely on that very report of the GEAC. That country’s science and technology minister has written a letter praising the...
More »Low Pulse by Savvy Soumya Misra
Spiralling prices of pulses have shown India’s dependence on imports. Pulses are integral to India’s diet but not its food policy. As a result, supply cannot meet demand. What are the consequences and solutions? Surendra Nath has switched to eating grass-pea, though he knows it is not good for health. But so is tobacco, he argues. He cannot do without pulses and pigeon-pea selling at Rs 100 a kg is beyond...
More »The imminent food crisis by AV Rajwade
The current food inflation is a result of food output growth not keeping pace with population growth Few recall that, just last month, there was a food security summit in Rome. In sharp contrast to the almost overwhelming coverage of the Copenhagen climate summit, it attracted far lesser attention from the heads of governments, as also from the media. This is somewhat strange as a food (and water) crisis can hit...
More »Impact on Agriculture
KEY TRENDS • Research studies indicate more erratic and intense monsoon rains/unseasonal rains and hailstorm, increasing risk of droughts and floods and rise in temperature including increased frequency of warm days. This leads to projected average reduction of yield by 6 percent in wheat, 4-6 percent in rice, 18 percent in maize, 2.5 percent in sorghum, 2 percent in mustard and 2.5 percent in potato. The crop yield were projected more...
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