-Down to Earth India faces a surplus of foodgrains. Is exporting a good option? With India's grain mountain set to implode, the government is desperate to push the exports of rice and wheat. However, a global glut and the resulting depression of prices are dimming the prospects of foodgrain exports. According to the Food Corporation of India (FCI), the nodal agency for grain trade in the country, India is sitting on 34 million...
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A lesson cooks in potato pot-Devadeep Purohit and Kinsuk Basu
-The Telegraph Kolkata: The Mamata Banerjee government should have calculated the costs of possible retaliation by other states before banning potato export from Bengal, agriculture experts have said. For now, no state has threatened a payback for the ban, clamped despite pleas from the chief ministers of Odisha and Assam after a shortage pushed up potato prices in Bengal. As the Bengal administration grapples with the problem, importers of essential foodstuff have sounded...
More »Onions at Rs 20/kg? Not so far-fetched; Building buffer & imports can make them cheap-Ashok Gulati
-The Economic Times If I say today that I am ready to supply onions, in an improvised form, at Rs 20/kg home delivered, and round the year, people may think either I have gone crazy or I am dipping into the general exchequer to pull off a massive subsidy scheme for onions. Wrong. I will make a cool profit of 15 to 20% in this deal, do a great service to...
More »Food sector reform: Tackling the runaway food inflation train
-The Economic Times Nothing can be more ironic than to have food inflation at 18% (August 2013 over last August) in a country that takes pride in enacting the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and bestowing "the right to food" to 67% of its population by promising 5 kg cereals per capita per month (pcpm) at highly subsidised rates. Given that cereals consumption is 10.7 kg pcpm, people will have to face...
More »Debate on rice: Make informed nutritional choices to gain maximum benefit from the food grain-Nandita Iyer
-The Economic Times It's hard to think of a cereal that is more intrinsic to Indian culture than rice. It journeys with us for a whole lifetime - with the first solid food a baby is traditionally fed during the annaprashan ceremony to sprinkling it over a deceased person's mouth during the last rites. A vast majority of the Indian population eats rice as its staple grain, similar to Asian countries...
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