Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today asked states to waive local taxes, including octroi, as well as reform the outdated Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee Act, or Mandi Act, to help control a runaway food inflation. The Prime Minister also called for dovetailing organised retail chains with farm supply chains. “Supply chains need to be strengthened and these need to be dovetailed with organised retail chains for quicker and more efficient distribution of farm...

India's food prices are likely to ease, bringing down food inflation from stubbornly high levels, over the next two months as supplies of onions and other vegetables are expected to pick up, industry officials said Thursday. The country's food inflation rate surged to more than 18% in December as vegetable prices, particularly those of onions, spiked after unseasonal rain damaged crops. India's food inflation rate has slightly eased since then, but...

Expressing his "helplessness" on high food inflation, Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar today said the farmers must get right value for their produce so that they are encouraged to increase production of essential farm commodities to rein in price rise. He, however, said that it was states' responsibility to ensure proper distribution of food grains to the people through ration shops while the Centre is responsible for production, procurement and moving...

The class bias in government policy is clear in the decision to release a small amount of foodgrain in the open market to tackle inflation. MOST people would agree that there is a strong element of speculation underlying the current inflation and that forward trading contributes to it. Yet the government, though it has banned forward trading in certain commodities under public pressure, is curiously reluctant to see this point....

Driven by trade interest, EU is pushing Endosulfan for POP listing Elimination of Endosulfan is expected to severely impact pollination and India’s farming India is today the second largest producer of horticulture crops (fruits at vegetables) and annually produces over 215 million mt (2008-09 figures source Ministry of Agriculture). This is almost as much as India’s total food grain production of 235 million mt (2008-09 figures source Ministry. of Agriculture). India’s export...