-The Financial Express The plan to build a buffer stock of pulses, akin to such facilities for rice and wheat, has run into a hurdle after the agriculture ministry insisted that only lentils that meet the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. The plan to build a buffer stock of pulses, akin to such facilities for rice and wheat, has run into a hurdle after the agriculture ministry insisted that only...

-Livemint.com It is early days yet to claim victory in the larger struggle to correct the fundamental bias in WTO against developing countries The impasse regarding the implementation of the trade facilitation agreement (TFA) in the World Trade Organization (WTO) seems to be coming to an end after India and the US reportedly resolved their differences on the food security outcome of the Bali ministerial conference held last December. Apparently, the US...

-The Hindu But an Assocham study has warned of an increase in prices Amid concern that the price of rice may be next to shoot up after those of pulses and onion, trade bodies put forth divergent views. V.S. Sethia, former president and currently a governing council member of the All-India Rice Export Association, told The Hindu that apprehensions of a sharp rise in rice price were baseless as ample stock of regular...

-The Financial Express Come January, Food Corporation of India (FCI), under a severe financial crunch, may be forced to trim its procurement operations. Come January, Food Corporation of India (FCI), under a severe financial crunch, may be forced to trim its procurement operations. Unless the finance ministry releases a good part of the unpaid subsidy of Rs 58,000 crore or let Life Insurance Corporation raise Rs 40,000 crore to support FCI soon,...

-Financial Express The country must double its support to farmers, from the current levels of about 6-8% of the value of agri-output It was in the mid-1980s that the ‘India-Bharat’ phraseology was fist pushed into political jargon, by farmers’ leader Sharad Joshi, with ‘India’ representing the urban elite of the country and ‘Bharat’ synonymous with its neglected rural folk. Joshi, at the time, was leading lakhs of farmers protesting against anti-farmer policies,...