India still has a long way to go in achieving food and nutritional security, albeit the country has achieved record production with 5.4% growth in agriculture and allied sector. This was corroborated by Sharad Pawar, minister of agriculture and food processing, while addressing the National Conference on Agriculture for Kharif Campaign-2011 in New Delhi recently. "Record production with 235.88 Mt of foodgrains in 2010-2011 should not lead to complacency as we...

The country has achieved an all-time high production of foodgrains, estimated at 235.88 million tonnes in 2010-11, said Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday. This came on the strength of a record output of wheat and pulses. The highest output of foodgrains, so far, has been the 234.47 million tonnes produced in 2008-09. Speaking at the National Conference on Kharif Strategies, Mr. Pawar said: “The third advance estimate figures [for the...

India's foodgrains production is estimated at a record 235.88 million tonnes in the 2010-11 crop year, ending June, on the back of the highest-ever output of wheat and pulses, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar announced today. "The third advance estimate figures are available with me, which show an all-time record production of foodgrains at 235.88 million tonnes. Wheat at 84.27 million tonnes and pulses at 17.29 million tonnes are also the highest...

The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), the government's main advisory body on pricing policy for farm produce, has favoured a subsidy mechanism to encourage use of hybrid rice varieties. The commission's views are likely to be a part of the recommendations it plans to send to the government on pricing of farm produce. "China has gone ahead in hybrid rice and around 63 per cent of its total area is...

Given the vulnerability of Indian agriculture to climate change, the countrys food security is threatened by global warming. The Union agriculture ministry is right, therefore, to warn of a possible foodgrain deficit, of as much as 20 million tonne by the end of this decade if measures are not taken to combat the impact of global warming on food production. It has also reportedly asked for an additional budgetary support...