Despite high prices of fruits and vegetables, India's area under horticultural crops - mainly fruits, vegetables, spices and flowers - has doubled in around twenty years (between 1991-92 and 2012-13). This has resulted in increase in production of horticultural crops nearly threefold (2.8 times). A new report from the Ministry of Agriculture says that the area under horticultural crops during this period rose from 12.77 million hectares to 23.69 million...

-The Economic Times LONDON: Large areas of rich irrigated and fertile land in the Indo-Gangetic basin is being lost daily to salt damage, confirms the UN. Crop yield losses on salt-affected lands for wheat, rice, sugarcane and cotton grown on salt-affected lands could be 40%, 45%, 48%, and 63%, respectively. Employment losses could be 50-80 man-days per hectare, with an estimate 20-40% increase in human health problems and 15-50% increase in animal health...

-The Business Standard   NC Saxena, a former member of the National Advisory Council believes that the regulatory regime in the states continues to be oppressive. In an e-mailed interview with Aditi Phadnis, Saxena says that the fundamental problem in India is the low tax-GDP ratio and neither the last government nor the current one seems interested in increasing revenues. Edited excerpts: * The new government appears to be watering down a lot...

-Economic and Political Weekly The cultivation of geneticallymodified crops, especially food crops, is not just a domestic issue; it has an impact on global food trade as well. Sukhpal Singh (sukhpal@iimahd.ernet.in) is at the Centre for Management in Agriculture, IIM, Ahmedabad. There is no doubt that the application of biotechnology can lead to yield improvement, cost cutting and lower crop losses, besides providing more processable raw materials and designer products. That is why...

-United Nations Food markets are more stable and prices for most agricultural commodities are sharply lower than they have been in recent years, according to the latest edition of the biannual Food Outlook report released today by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). According to a statement released by the Rome-based FAO, bumper harvests and abundant stockpiles are key factors helping drive down international food prices. World wheat production in 2014...