Economists across the world are expressing concern about rising food prices. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization recently released its Food Price Index. The list showed that a number of foods cost more than during the world food crisis of two thousand eight. The index is at its highest level since it began in nineteen ninety. Demonstrations and deadly food riots have broken out this month, as they did in...

When we hear the word innovation, we often think of new technologies or silver bullet solutions — like hydrogen fuel cells or a cure for cancer. To be sure, breakthroughs are vital: antibiotics and vaccines, for example, transformed global health. But as we’ve argued in Fixes, some of the greatest advances come from taking old ideas or technologies and making them accessible to millions of people who are underserved. One area...

The problem is all pervasive as the prices of almost all food items have been rising In a scenario that is all familiar in India and for that matter in many other countries too, rising food prices have become an extremely sensitive issue with major political and social ramifications that go well beyond the economic ones. Not that the economic consequences are unimportant. From the macroeconomic management point of view, rising food...

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has held a cabinet meeting to tackle spiralling food prices. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Home Minister P Chidambaram and Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar were among those at the talks in Delhi. The soaring price of vegetables, milk and other eatables in the past month have taken food inflation to 18.32% - the highest in more than a year. The agriculture minister has said the crisis is...

India’s food inflation accelerated for the fifth straight week to the highest in more than a year, reinforcing fears it will spill over to broader prices and pile pressure on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to tighten monetary policy. Unseasonal rains have pushed up prices of vegetables such as onions and tomatoes in recent weeks, and the authorities are bracing to live with elevated price levels in the near term. Onion...