IRONY RUNS its play every year in India as food grains rot in godowns while 23 crore people go hungry every day. GOI Monitor talks to food and trade policy analyst Devinder Sharma on the issues stalking agriculture and public distribution    One of the reasons for surplus food not reaching the needy is that states are not picking up the grain. Why is this happening? Food grain procurement and distribution is...

Bengal is staring at the possibility of losing self-sufficiency in rice unless the state manages to reverse a declining trend and step up production by as much as 12 per cent over the next four years. Lack of self-sufficiency in grain production need not necessarily be an alarming factor for a modern economy. But such a status is looming over Bengal in spite of factories not mushrooming on farmland — the...

Lack of knowledge, fear of political criticism are some of the reasons that are stopping FCI, according to experts What is stopping Food Corp. of India Ltd (FCI) from selling its ample wheat stocks in the open market and buying futures contracts to meet its distribution commitments in the months ahead? Or, for that matter, what is keeping the food procurement agency from selling grain futures internationally, knowing that a bumper crop...

-The Times of India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to discuss the foodgrain storage and crop situation with food minister K V Thomas and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday amid news of a bumper harvest this year and overflowing granaries.  The meeting, slated for Monday, was postponed, and is likely to discuss options before the government to offload the grains in the central pool that are expected to reach record...

Notwithstanding apprehensions expressed by rural development minister Jairam Ramesh on the proposal of giving grain as part payment of wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, food minister KV Thomas  on Sunday continued to support the idea. Thomas said, “There is enough surplus grain to be given to poor families.” In a recent letter to the Jairam Ramesh, Thomas had made the proposal, which he said would also help ease...