Dr Howarth E Bouis, director of HarvestPlus, is a doctorate from Stanford University. He is promoting biofortification within the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, agricultural research and nutrition community in various countries. What is biofortification of crops? Biofortification is a process where plant breeders explore crop genetic diversity in seed banks and create a crop that is rich in specific micronutrients. There are two ways to biofortify crops—conventional plant breeding and...

Pranab Mukherjee, India’s finance minister, put the rural economy at the heart of a national budget on Monday, saying ridding the farm sector of crippling supply bottlenecks would be his “focus” in the coming fiscal year.A market-neutral budget supporting agriculture, welfare schemes and the extension of banking services to more people was designed to dispel any sense that the Congress party-led government was in drift after a series of high...

Food security and organic farming can go hand in hand. Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today gave a green signal to efforts under the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture to promote green manuring and organic farming while talking about bringing in the Food Securtiy Act this year, settling the debate on high pesticide and chemical fertiliser use in Punjab and Haryana. He said his government is mulling to also bring urea,...

Ban futures trading in essential commodities, says Modi report As chairman of the working group on consumer affairs, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has recommended that futures trading in essential commodities be banned and that organised retail in agri-produce be encouraged to make a dent in food inflation. The working group, comprising the Chief Ministers of Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, was set up in April last. Mr. Modi...

Rattled by soaring food prices and falling farm productivity, the FM has announced a slew of measures to boost the farm sector and vowed to deepen the process of attracting more private investment in agriculture and agro-processing. He announced an increase in bank lending for farm sector as well as interest subsidy to farmers who pay short-term crop loans on time. "I propose to enhance additional subvention to 3% in 2011-12....