Last year, paddy cultivation suffered owing to drought in 399 districts during the same period Area under coarse cereals is also up by 2.91 per cent at 21.2 million hectares this year Thanks to good monsoon, the area under rice cultivation this kharif season has gone up by 6.4 per cent. Last year, paddy cultivation had suffered owing to drought in 399 districts during the same period. As per the official data released...

A recent report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, provides a damning indictment of the role of speculation in food commodities in fuelling the global food crisis. The report – 'Food Commodities Speculation and Food Price Crisis – was released on the eve of an emergency meeting of the UN-FAO on the instability in agricultural markets. The global food crisis in 2007-08 led to...

Ample monsoon rains and higher prices of farm goods are likely to lift Indian fertiliser demand in 2010/11 by 13 percent to a record 60 million tonnes, testing local fertiliser makers' ability to raise output in sync with the demand, industry officials said. India's June-Sept monsoon rains, a key factor in determining food grain production and fertiliser demand in the country, were 2 percent above normal in the current year, weather office data showed....

Global foodgrain prices are likely to remain high in the coming months despite high output estimates this season. Bad weather in Brazil and Russia and rising global demand have made the grain market sensitive. The assessment of the damage due to dry weather in Russia, Western Australia and South America and floods in India, China and Pakistan is yet to be done. This is offering grain traders speculative opportunity on futures...

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Thursday said that the kharif production at 114.63 million tonnes for 2010-11 crop year was “comfortable.” “The output is better than last year which was a drought year, but lower than 2008-09, which was a normal year.” “The kharif production looks good. Area under crops such as paddy, pulses, cotton and sugarcane is more than last year,'' he told journalists after the Agriculture Ministry released the...