Global wheat harvests may trail demand for a second year, spurring hoarding and further price gains, said the United Nations. “Whenever you get the market as tight as we are now, hoarding becomes widespread,” Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, said in an interview by phone from Rome. Wheat, corn and soybeans soared to the highest levels since 2008 yesterday as a U.S. government report showed...

Just over a year since it was crippled by a drought, India’s agriculture sector is firing on all cylinders again, a much-needed turnaround that could keep overall growth high and make fighting inflation easier. The country looks set to reap its second-highest harvest of foodgrains in 2010-11, which includes an estimated 81.47 million tonnes of wheat alone, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said on Wednesday. Apart from cereals, record output in pulses...

The International Labour Organisation's Decent Work Research Prize has been awarded to economist Jayati Ghosh and Professor Eve Landau. Dr. Ghosh, who teaches at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, is honoured for her major contributions to the analysis of socio-economic relationships and policy instruments for the advancement of decent work. The prize carries a cash reward of $5,000. Dr. Ghosh has also been invited to make a presentation at a special ceremony to be...

Food inflation dropped sharply to 13.07% for the week ended January 29 from 17.05% in the previous week. According to data released by the ministry of industry and commerce on Thursday food inflation declined to a seven-week low due to decline in the prices of pulses and potatoes. On an annual basis, prices of potatoes declined 8.87%, while pulses fell 8.63% and wheat by 3.58%, the government data said. Although the...

The Prime Minister-appointed Rangarajan Committee reviewing the draft food security bill has got its economics and logic wrong, a majority of members on the National Advisory Council has said as part of a draft report. Ready to take on the PMO, the council is nearing finalization of the report that will point out errors in the Rangarajan report and defend the NAC's food security bill. The rebuttal is bound to...