-The Indian Express On Independence Day, we salute our freedom fighters. We also remember Lal Bahadur Shastri who gave us the slogan, jai jawan, jai kisan.   PM Modi needs to move from slogans to action to transform agriculture.   Atal Bihari Vajpayee expanded the slogan to jai jawan, jai kisan, jai vigyan. The present government has an array of slogans for the farmers. Prime Minister Modi has coined so many — swacchh bharat,...

Rising prices of dal: How to deal with it? The 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses. In India, however, ordinary citizens are under enormous duress due to the skyrocketing prices of dal/ lentils since the last one year. The website of Price Monitoring Cell of the Department of Consumer Affairs shows that dal prices varied across places. For example, the...

-Livemint.com The difference between wholesale and retail prices was as high as 52% for a variety of pulses, shows an analysis of available data New Delhi: High prices of pulse varieties have been a constant point of worry for consumers and governments over the past year. While consecutive years of deficit rain cut supplies, leading to higher imports and a spike in prices, what went unnoticed is the divergence between retail...

-The Hindu Business Line Govt’s production and distribution processes are out of sync with consumption patterns Of late, with growing income and awareness about nutritious food, there has been a noticeable decrease in the consumption of rice (a high-carb food) in Indian households. This change in consumption pattern, however, is not reflected in India’s agriculture policy which continues to revolve around rice and wheat. Moreover, current policies related to production, procurement, storage...

-The Hindu Business Line Fourth advance estimate pegs wheat production at 93.5 million tonnes New Delhi: Reinforcing its earlier assessment, the Centre has pegged foodgrain production in the country at 252.22 million tonnes (mt) in 2015-16 in its fourth advance estimates — almost the same as 2014-15’s (July-June) production of 252.02 mt. Production of major commercial crops in 2015-16, including cotton, sugarcane and oilseeds, was lower than in the previous year, according to...