-Business Standard Indian farming was transformed after the mid-60s, on a wave of new agri technology and allied changes, but the costs of this model can no longer be ignored or its addressing be postponed It was around the mid-1960s when the Paddock brothers, the ‘prophets of doom’, predicted that in another decade, recurring famines and an acute shortage of foodgrain would push India towards disaster.   Their prophecy was based on a...

-The Indian Express Farmers tend to lose out irrespective of whether crop prices go up or down. Government needs to rectify this. The price of tur/ arhar dal had recently skyrocketed to Rs 200 per kg and the consumer as well as the government were at their wits’ end. Not very long ago, high onion prices were making everyone shed copious tears. In both the cases, there was profit maximisation by...

-The Tribune To ensure stable prices of pulses and attractive returns for producers, policies of domestic prices and tariffs should blend. Import duties must be calibrated with demand. As the Indian economy grows at a rate of 7 per cent plus, assuming low growth as an aberration, the food basket will diversify. Within grains, the movement will be to pulses as shown by the  expert group on pulse production. The yield and...

-The Financial Express The plan to build a buffer stock of pulses, akin to such facilities for rice and wheat, has run into a hurdle after the agriculture ministry insisted that only lentils that meet the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. The plan to build a buffer stock of pulses, akin to such facilities for rice and wheat, has run into a hurdle after the agriculture ministry insisted that only...

-The Hindu But an Assocham study has warned of an increase in prices Amid concern that the price of rice may be next to shoot up after those of pulses and onion, trade bodies put forth divergent views. V.S. Sethia, former president and currently a governing council member of the All-India Rice Export Association, told The Hindu that apprehensions of a sharp rise in rice price were baseless as ample stock of regular...