Food and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is being praised in some quarters for daring to take a politically incorrect position. In a sharp disagreement with the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council's (NAC) proposal to supply subsidised food to 75% of the population, Pawar has pointed out two flaws in the proposal: first, that it is unaffordable and second that it is near impossible to procure and store the required food...
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FAO warns of further increase in global food prices by Gargi Parsai
Stability in markets will be determined by size of next year's crop The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned about a further increase in global food prices in 2011 if there is no significant increase in production of major food crops. In the latest edition of its “Food Outlook” report, the agency observed that the rise in global prices, all of which was accruing in the second half of 2010, owing...
More »FAO predicts marginal fall in global cereal production by Gargi Parsai
Current production and stocks are adequate to cover the demand The global cereal production for 2010-11 is expected to be 2,239 million tonnes compared to 2, 261 million tonnes recorded in 2009-10, about 1 per cent lower than last year. Reduced output of wheat in the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries due to drought, as well as smaller crops in the European Union and North Africa, account for the decline. Even...
More »Food will never become cheaper as expenses rise by Nidhi Nath Srinivas
Never mind wishful thinking by the government and RBI. Food will never be cheaper than what it is today. Not this year. Or in future. The reason is simple. Growing food in India has become extremely expensive. Crops are pricier even before they reach the market and face the pulls and tugs of rising local demand and exports. The farmer’s single biggest cost now is labour. Farm labour wages have doubled...
More »Food Security Sans PDS: Universalization Through Targeting? by Smita Gupta
The case of the Food Security Bill gets curiouser and curiouser. What started off as a fight between universalization and targeting has ended (or so it would seem) in a complete victory in the National Advisory Council, Government of India (NAC) for targeting through universalization (if such a thing was possible), with the honourable exception of Prof Jean Dreze, who has to be commended for his ‘note of disagreement’. On...
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