In the wake of runaway inflation and the ensuing food crisis, the prime minister constituted three high-powered committees of chief ministers and central ministers to recommend ways of containing inflation, improving PDS and boosting agricultural production. The Working Group on agricultural production was chaired by Haryana chief minister B S Hooda, with CMs of West Bengal, Punjab and Bihar as members. Tucked away, largely unnoticed by the Indian media, as...

India has been lauded for its remarkable overall economic growth of over 8% over the last five years. But despite this high and relatively stable growth, India's underbelly is soft. The agriculture sector is performing below expectations, with growth rate of around 2.8%, it is way below the Eleventh Plan target of 4%. The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) estimates that 22% of India's population is undernourished. Child malnutrition is...

Warmer nights may spoil the aroma of basmati and cause the rice to become sticky when cooked, scientists have warned after a study of how climate change may affect the quality of rice. Field experiments by scientists at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, suggest that high temperatures could hurt the quality of rice through loss of aroma and changes in starch leading to higher stickiness. Several previous studies have...

In India, of the total cultivated area of around 140.30 million hectares only 60.86 million is irrigated and remaining 79.44 million hectares is rain-fed. Rain-fed crops account for 48 percent area under food crops and 68 percent of the area under non-food crops. Irrigated land accounts for nearly 55 percent of food production while rain-fed contributes just about 45 percent. Rain-fed farming is risk prone and is characterized by low...

vineyard owners of Maharashtra who export grapes are worried. The Euro-pean Union rejected their table grape consignments in mid-April as they were found containing traces of chlormequat chloride, a plant growth regulator. The export of table grapes (these are consumed directly unlike grapes that go into wine making) was halted immediately. The farmers are facing losses of about Rs 300 crore, media reported. “My son-in-law had exported two containers (30...