-The Hindu ICAR Director-General says India needs to produce up to 2 million tonnes of rice to feed the teeming millions India, a country that comes second after China in rice cultivation with 44 million hectares under rice, plans to increase the acreage under hybrid rice to 5 million hectares from the current 2 million hectares.   Research goals Speakers at the 6 International Hybrid Rice Symposium here on Monday said the country needed to...

Industrialisation of agriculture creates hunger and malnutrition, destroying the food web to which we all belong. Hunger and malnutrition is manmade. It is in the design of the industrial chemical model of agriculture. And just as hunger has been created by design, producing healthy and nutritious food for all can be designed through food democracy. That is what we do in Navdanya. That is what the diverse movements for food sovereignty...

-The Economic Times A late revival of monsoon may have narrowed the rain deficit to single digit (9%) but it is unlikely to help boost food grains production. "There would be a decline in the overall food grains production. There would be some drop in the production of pulses and coarse cereals," said Agriculture Secretary Ashish Bahuguna. He said the indication will start coming after the first advance estimates of the kharif...

-The Hindu The World Bank has joined the chorus warning the world of an impending food crisis with damaging food price inflation. In its late-August edition of its Food Price Watch the Bank reported that global prices for food as reflected by its Food Price Index rose 10 per cent in July 2012 alone. The prices of staples such as corn and soya bean were at an all-time high that month,...

-Reuters Water levels in India's main reservoirs were at 65 per cent of capacity in the week to September 6, down 14 per centage points from a year ago, reflecting this year's weak monsoon, government data issued late on Thursday showed. The latest level was one per centage point higher than the 10-year average for the week. It was 4 per centage points higher than the previous week as the monsoon rains...