With food inflation hovering in the double digit bracket for most part of 2010-11 and the aam aadmi up in arms, all hopes were pinned on the Union Budget 2011-12 for giving a new fillip to the farm sector. But the budget has disappointed most, in spite of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee allocating Rs 14,744 crore for agriculture. “An increase of only 2.6 per cent over last year makes the...

The targeted four per cent growth in the agriculture sector could be achieved if agricultural schemes such as System of Rice Intensification and Dryland Farming, initiated in Tamil Nadu, are replicated across India, the Planning Commission has said. "India, producing around 210-220 million tonnes of foodgrains annually, has to increase the productivity from two tonnes per hectare against the world average of four tonnes,'' the Member of the Planning Commission, Dr...

Why is every fourth Indian hungry? Why is every third woman in India anaemic and malnourished? Why is every second child underweight and stunted? Why has the hunger and malnutrition crisis deepened even as India has nine per cent growth? Why is “Shining India” a “Starving India”? In my view, hunger is a structural part of the design of the industrialised, globalised food system. Hunger is an intrinsic part of the...

Buoyed by a fresh Rs 400-crore fillip to transform the east into the country’s next food bowl, the state has set its eyes on a chunk of Rs 60 crore to give shape to what is being termed as the second green revolution. Speaking to The Telegraph, state agriculture secretary A.K. Singh said the department was drafting a detailed proposal that would be submitted to a central team, which will visit...

Pranab Mukherjee, India’s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his “focus” in the coming fiscal year.A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high...