Manipur households may find it difficult to fill their plates with rice next year, with the ongoing economic blockade robbing farmers of essential fuel to run their tilling machines. The food and civil supplies godown now has 7,132 metric tonnes of rice while the Indian Oil Corporation in Imphal has 1,223 kilo litres of diesel. The rice will last for a month, while the diesel can keep the state running for...

A tussle between the Chhattisgarh government and the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) over an elephant reserve has reached the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). And the dispute is emblematic of the way the richly forested state is hurtling to get the developed tag by shaving off its pristine tree cover. Since 2004, the Chhattisgarh government has signed 102 memorandum of understandings (MOUs) with industrial houses for production of steel,...

World cereal output is expected to rise this year to near-record highs, swelling overall supplies and putting pressure on already weakened prices, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Thursday. The global wheat output is expected to fall for the third consecutive year, but at 676.5 million tonnes, it would still be close to record levels, the UN’s food agency said, revising its earlier forecast for 2010. Overall cereal output is...

Thanks to predictions of a good monsoon, Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen has projected a robust growth rate of five per cent from 0.2 per cent in agriculture and allied sectors in 2010-11. From the earlier estimate of -0.2 per cent last year, the growth rate has been revised to 0.2 per cent. Dr. Sen, who is in charge of the farm and food sector in the Commission, said food inflation was...

Biodiversity drives sustainable and climate-resilient farming and the biotechnology industry. Everything should be done to spread bio-literacy for an era of bio-happiness in rural and urban India through the conversion of bio-resources into jobs and income.  Biodiversity provides building blocks for sustainable food, health and livelihood security systems. It is the feedstock for the biotechnology industry and a climate-resilient farming system. Given its importance, a Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)...