Even as the Centre is redrafting the Food Security Bill to ensure availability of food for all, nearly 30 lakh tonnes of paddy — the rice from which could feed around 4 lakh people for a month — have been left to rot in Punjab, with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) refusing to lift the stock. This particular variety of paddy, PAU 201, was developed by Punjab Agricultural University, and...

Is the Planning Commission too singularly focused on reducing food subsidy and intending to dissuade people from buying subsidized food rations even as the government spends thousands of crores to store excess grains in its stocks? Is it being penny wise but pound foolish? An internal note of the Plan panel suggests so. A note prepared by the panel reveals some startling information. On April 1, 2010 -- normally the...

An analysis of the remote sensing data collected by Nasa satellites on the changes in vegetation in India during the last 25 years has confirmed the bad news: The growth rate of foodgrain production in India has been stagnant in the last decade, which crop statisticians have been aware of for some time now. A nine-member team of scientists from Nasa, the Boston University and the Indian Institute of Tropical...

Monsoon rains, which have entered the key soybean-growing areas, are likely to be weak in the next three days, weather officials said on Monday. But industry officials said sowing of soybean, the main summer-planted oilseed, would not be hit due to good soil moisture after recent pre-monsoon showers in the region. Weather officials said rains are likely to gather momentum from 25 June. “We expect monsoon flow to strengthen over central India from...

The recent announcement of minimum support prices (MSP) for various Kharif crops has once again called into question certain aspects of the official policy towards agricultural pricing. True to pattern, it has come in late. The monsoon arrived at least a week before, and many farmers might have already chosen the crops to sow. The world over governments through their price support programmes, consisting of assured minimum prices and subsidies,...