The US Senate is expected to pass the Global Food Security Act, new legislation that would significantly expand the government's commitment to combating hunger worldwide with a broad range of measures and more money, and a special coordinator, or "food czar", to oversee implementation of these provisions across agencies. A proposed new fund would allocate several billion dollars over five years to research and development, to enhance "food security, agriculture productivity,...

The emerging economies of Brazil, India, China and Russia will enjoy an agricultural boom over the next decade as production stalls in Western Europe, a report says. Agricultural output in the Bric nations will grow three times as fast as in the major developed countries, the joint United Nations-OECD study said. Livestock and crop prices will stay above long-term averages, it added. And rising incomes and urbanisation in developing states...

Batten down the hatches? Pull out all the stops? It might be difficult to find the cliché that adequately emphasises the urgency with which the government needs to tackle inflation. The worry is not just that May inflation was in double digits (10.16 per cent). It is also a fact that prices of commodities other than food are now beginning to gallop. Inflation in non-food manufactured products (often referred to...

The latest report on the progress of millennium development goals (MDG) by the United Nations has said that robust social protection and employment schemes such as India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) reduce poverty and reverse inequality. In its report, ‘What Will it Take to Achieve Millennium Development Goals,' the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has said the MNREGS is known for improving livelihoods through legal guarantee of...

Development models that focus attention on the poor while expanding job opportunities, increased government spending on social services and aid flows from affluent nations are all successful strategies for alleviating global poverty, the United Nations says. Access to low carbon energy and mobilizing domestic capital by, for example, improving tax collection, are the other factors the UN Development Programme (UNDP) identifies in a new report as crucial factors for the...