-The Indian Express * Have global agri-commodity prices fallen? By how much? They have. The Food and Agricultural Organisation's latest Food Price Index (base: 2002-04 = 100) of 192.3 for October is down 6.9 per cent compared to a year ago, and 19.1% below the all-time high of 237.7 reached in February 2011. Prices of commodities such as corn, wheat, soybean, sugar and palm oil traded in international futures exchanges are today...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Farm distress looms as global crop prices crash after 10-year bull run -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express For the last 10 years, farmers in India benefited from both increased production and higher price realisations - leading to rising rural incomes and declining poverty rates. That happy story may now be near its end - which could be the precursor to a renewed crisis in agriculture. The main reason is declining global prices for most agri-commodities (see Table 1). Over the last five-six months, corn, wheat and...
More »Food security at WTO: Ministry officials to meet PM today -Amiti Sen
-The Hindu Business Line Commerce Ministry officials to meet PM today for consent on negotiating stand With the US softening its position on India's food security concerns at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Prime Minister's Office will now take a final call on what could be an "acceptable" solution for India on the issue. Top officials from the Commerce Ministry are scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday to finalise...
More »Food law adrift as government trims grain purchases -Sanjeeb Mukherjee
-The Business Standard The NDA is looking to reduce fiscal deficit not by chopping social sector spending but by paring it down Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is fairly confident the government will meet this year's fiscal deficit target. At 4.1 per cent of gross domestic product the deficit looked looked like a bit of stretch in July but the food subsidy, for one, is not going to balloon as in previous years. The...
More »Punjab to procure, distribute grains under food law -Sanjeeb Mukherjee
-The Business Standard In a move that could lessen the Centre's foodgrain procurement burden, it has allowed the Punjab government to purchase and distribute grains in advance to beneficiaries of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) for the next few months. As a result, 800,000-900,000 tonnes, mostly wheat, will not come to the Centre's pool for a while. Punjab is one of the main wheat and rice producers in the country. It had...
More »