-The Hindu The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on Food will meet soon following a letter by Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on curbs over milk, cotton and sugar exports. The EgoM is headed by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. Mr. Pawar shot off the letter to the Prime Minister after the EGoM disallowed export of cotton beyond 13 million bales for the current marketing year the...

-PTI World food prices remained almost same in March from their levels in February due to stable prices in most commodities and decline in dairy prices, United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation said.  "World food prices in March remained virtually unchanged from their February levels," Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a statement.  Amongst various commodity groups, only oil prices showed strength, compensating for falling dairy quotations, while the indices of cereals,...

-Reuters Global food prices rose in March for a third successive month, driven by gains in grains and vegetable oils, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Thursday, putting food inflation firmly back on the economic agenda. Food prices hit record highs in February 2011 and stoked protests connected to the Arab Spring wave of civil unrest in some north African and middle eastern countries. They then receded but started...

-The Business Standard   Learning from the jatropha mistake The tropical shrub jatropha curcas, touted a decade ago as a commercially feasible source of biofuel to alleviate the global energy crisis, seems to have let its proponents down quite comprehensively. Millions of hectares of land in the arid areas of India and in many other Asian and African countries were turned into jatropha plantations in the expectation that the oil derived from its...

A report on ‘State of Indian Agriculture 2011-12’, tabled in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, has called for reforms to ensure that the sector grows in tandem with the overall GDP of the country. The report says that “achieving an 8-9% rate of growth in the overall GDP may not deliver much in terms of poverty reduction unless agricultural growth accelerates”. Admitting that the sector has undergone ‘significant structural changes’ in...