India, the world’s biggest producer and consumer of pulses, has extended ban on pulses exports until further orders, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said on Tuesday, as it battles to rein in high food prices. The government had in June 2006 banned exports of pulses, which has a weight of 0.72 per cent in the wholesale price index. India’s food price index rose 12.13 per cent in the year to December 11, government...

Differences between the National Advisory Council (NAC), headed by Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, and the government over the food security Bill have begun to narrow, but a suggestion by the agriculture ministry to offer cash to poor consumers in case sufficient foodgrain isn’t available remains a contentious issue.“We do not have any serious objections to the recommendations of the NAC. But the ministry wants to have the provision for...

From the time a farmer in India harvests his produce to the time it lands on your plate, farm products go through several layers of middlemen, wholesalers, cold chains and other intermediaries, which push its price up by many notches. The end result: growers get paid less and consumers pay more. The stranglehold that the government has over agriculture produce marketing in India has given rise to abject inefficiencies, lack...

No proposal to revise Minimum Support Price Despite demands from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, there is no proposal with the Centre to revise the Minimum Support Price (MSP) or announce any bonus for wheat, paddy and sugarcane crops. However, it is working towards a system of ensuring remunerative prices under which farmers do not require any concessions in future, according to Union Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad...

India does not have enough surplus stocks of foodgrains for exports in the short-term and the country needs to boost its farm production significantly, to meet the expected rise in domestic demand by 2020, a top official of FCI said on Wednesday. "The country has adequate stock of foodgrains to meet our needs...there is not much surplus availability of the food grains for export in the short-term," Food Corporation of...