-The Hindu By allowing futures trade in food and diversion of farm land for commercial purposes, the UPA government is fuelling the price rise International agencies are warning of high food prices on a global scale in 2013 if urgent action is not taken. But our government shows little concern. The President’s address to Parliament had only a cursory mention of inflation. “Inflation is easing gradually, but is still a problem,” he...

-Governance Now Rakesh Kumar now swears by organic farming — in three years, he has maximised yield and minimised input cost If Rakesh Kumar is over the moon — and he has every reason to be, having just set the world record in per-hectare potato harvest — he does not show it. An unassuming man, the 35-year-old Nalanda resident smiles when you mention his record but for both Kumar and his family...

-The Telegraph Kolkata: Owners of potato cold storages today announced a day’s shutdown on Monday and threatened a longer agitation to protest the Mamata Banerjee government’s refusal to allow a rent hike. Many officials termed this as another instance of the “populist” government’s reluctance to raise tariffs. “The rent is our only source of income. Overhead costs have spiralled in the past two years. But the government is not allowing us to increase...

-Al Jazeera  Organic farming is the "only way to produce food" without harming the planet and people's health. Reports trying to create doubts about organic agriculture are suddenly flooding the media. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, people are fed up of the corporate assault of toxics and GMOs. Secondly, people are turning to organic agriculture and organic food as a way to end the toxic war against the earth and...

-The Telegraph Patna: Farmers in Bihar have set their sights on foreign funds for a change in their fortune though economists have cast a doubt on it. Ask Nitish Kumar, a farmer of Darveshpura village in Nalanda district, who hogged the limelight a couple of months ago with record production of potatoes. Nitish had no one by his side when he was forced to go for distress sale of the same potato, which...