-PTI/ Moneycontrol.com The estimates were finalised after discussion with state food secretaries and Food Corporation of India (FCI) officials in a meeting chaired by Union Food Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey here. The government fixed the rice procurement estimate for the central pool at 518 lakh tonnes (LT) for the current Kharif season, up by 1.60 per cent from the last year despite production concerns. The estimates were finalised after discussion with state food secretaries...

-Hindustan Times Planting of key kharif or summer-sown crops, which account for half of the country’s annual food output, was 1.5% lower on August 26 compared to last year, according to farm ministry data India’s food output is likely to fall after six straight record harvests, as extreme weather dented sowing of crops, such as rice and pulses, raising concerns about inflation and tight supplies, data from the farm ministry indicates. Planting of...

-Livemint.com We must raise procurement to prepare for a possible rise in inflation as global food supplies shrink Recent data on inflation suggests a softening of the trend of rising inflation in retail prices. Much of the inflation this year has been driven by rising food prices, particularly edible oil and more recently cereals, primarily wheat. This has followed the global trend in food prices, which softened last month, even though they...

-Business Standard A victim of supply chain disruption is food. Even as the world looks towards India to fill the void created by the Russia-Ukraine war, a drop in paddy acreage is threatening to make the matter worse Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and amid challenges for global food supply, PM Narendra Modi declared that India was capable of "feeding the world". However, instead of feeding the world, the govt soon restricted...

-Livemint.com An uneven distribution of rainfall has left several key rice-producing states parched even as others had to battle excess water The patchy progress of the southwest monsoon this year has cast a long shadow on India’s kharif crop produce, particularly of rice, which is an important constituent of the government’s food distribution programmes. The threat comes right after wheat production in the rabi season took a hit from heatwaves and at...