Union Minister for Agriculture Sharad Pawar has assured a delegation of Consortium of Indian Farmers' Association (CIFA) from the State on Thursday that a meeting of the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Economic Affairs slated for December 7 is likely to permit export of non-basmati fine rice from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. In a statement issued here on Friday, K. Somasekhar Rao of CIFA stated that Mr. Pawar had also told them...

A projected global population of 9 billion concentrated mostly in the developing world and a higher income level alone are enough to put pressure on world’s supply of food grains. But with changes in temperature levels and rainfall pattern beyond an acceptable limit on account of climate change, the pressures on food prices can be expected to enormous. World prices of staple food grains are projected to rise from anywhere...

The issues relating to the victims of endosulfan, sprayed in the plantations of Kasargod district in Kerala, have snowballed once again. “Earthworms emerged from the soil, and, subsequently, died. Then birds came to eat the earthworms and they died as well.”   “Some termites were killed in a cotton farm sprayed with endosulfan. A frog fed on the dead termites, and was immobilised a few minutes later. An owl which flew over...

India's agriculture and allied sector grew by 3.8 per cent in the first six months of the current fiscal, against one per cent in the year-ago period on the back of better Kharif crop output. According to the GDP data released by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) today, the country's farm sector grew by 2.5 per cent and 4.4 per cent each in the first two quarters of the current fiscal,...

The experts group, chaired by chief of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council C. Rangarajan, set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to examine the recommendations of the National Advisory Council (NAC) on the proposed National Food Security Bill, will hold its first meeting here on Friday. Even as the NAC is formulating the draft Bill, the experts group will examine the proposals and come up with its suggestions. A meeting of...