-The Hindu Business Line Hits 3.74% in August as potato, manufactured items get pricier New Delhi: Wholesale price inflation rose to a two-year high of 3.74 per cent in August pushed up by expensive pulses and potatoes as well as a sudden spike in prices of manufactured items. Wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation was 3.55 per cent in July and had contracted by 5.06 per cent in August last year. Previously, WPI inflation...

-The Hindu Business Line Hyderabad: Bayer’s takeover of Monsanto for $66 billion could trigger tremors in Indian agriculture. Stakeholders worry that the global consolidation will narrow choices for farmers. The merger will propel the merged entity into a leading player in the seed sector. Through their subsidiaries and joint ventures in India, the two firms will garner a major share in paddy, maize, vegetables and cotton and agrochemicals. “It will lead to concentration...

-The New Indian Express KOCHI: Keeping its promise to promote organic farming and paddy cultivation in the State, the Agriculture Department has initiated steps to carry out upland paddy cultivation in 2,560 hectares in the 2016-17 fiscal year. According to officials, more than one lakh hectares of cultivable land is lying barren in the State. “Currently, we are importing vegetables and rice from the other states to meet our demand, at a...

-Livemint.com Except people in high-income countries, most of the world cannot afford the fruits and vegetables they need, according to research in ‘Lancet’ New Delhi: Three in four Indians are yet to taste the fruits of economic growth—or indeed, its veggies. Recent research published in the British medical journal Lancet calculates fruit and vegetable intake among people of different countries, on the basis of gross national income per person. The research finds that the...

-The Hindu China was the largest importer of the grain in 2015-16. New Delhi: China may soon grant market access to India's non-basmati rice exports, acceding to a long-pending request from New Delhi. The Centre had repeatedly taken up the issue of the country’s ballooning goods trade deficit with China bilaterally. India had demanded market access for products including non-basmati rice, pharmaceuticals and several fruits & vegetables among others. India’s goods trade deficit with...