The Union Food and Agriculture Ministry has turned down requests from Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh for resuming export of non-basmati rice. The government has banned export of wheat and non-basmati rice from February 2, 2007 and April 1, 2008 to stabilise prices of these commodities in the domestic market and to maintain sufficient stocks for ensuring food security in the country. Not acceded to “Requests were received from the State governments of...

He came, he spoke, and he got 54,000 jobs. This was on Day One of his India visit. By the time he flies out of New Delhi on November 9, US President Barack Obama would have charmed his way through to force open Indian agriculture to American corporations . And therein hangs the fate of millions of small and marginal farmers. Top on the agenda is the push to make Prime...

Taxes on international flights, shipping and financial transactions, as well as a global carbon price of $20 to $25 may be key to annually mobilising $100 billion in climate funding by 2020, according to the United Nations high-level advisory group on climate change financing, which submitted its report in New York on Friday. At the U.N. climate summit held in Copenhagen last year, developed countries committed to a goal of jointly...

Current production and stocks are adequate to cover the demand The global cereal production for 2010-11 is expected to be 2,239 million tonnes compared to 2, 261 million tonnes recorded in 2009-10, about 1 per cent lower than last year. Reduced output of wheat in the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries due to drought, as well as smaller crops in the European Union and North Africa, account for the decline. Even...

For generations, a majority of Vidarbha’s debt-ridden farmers have only grown cotton, making themselves vulnerable to unreliable market conditions. Now, these and other districts facing an agrarian crisis, as well as the rest of the state’s agriculture community may have some reason to smile. Rs 643 crore will be pumped into the state for the farmers, with the government going ahead with its ambitious Maharashtra Competitive Agriculture Project (MACP). On Tuesday, the...