-The Business Standard States need to create alternative marketing structures for farm produce since middlemen also provide vital services that are otherwise unavailable to the farmer   One of the issues often raised in the context of high Food inflation is the pressing need to change the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMC), the marketing boards established by state governments. The earlier United Progressive Alliance government had asked the Congress-ruled states to remove fruit...

-The Pioneer The Government must establish research & development and innovation centres at the village level, which can be instrumental in evolving solutions for the actual problems being faced on day-to-day basis by the farming community The agriculture sector today faces multiple problems, thanks to insufficient rainfall, falling crop productivity and failures coupled with low profitability. Climate change, air pollution, frequent droughts and other adversities have brought the farmers to their knees,...

-The Indian Express Because the GM question demands evidence-based policymaking, not corporate shills or NGO prejudices. Two RSS-affiliated groups, the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch and the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, seem to have successfully petitioned the environment minister to hold off field trials of genetically modified crops. Only a week ago, the statutory body for these decisions, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), had allowed farm trials of rice, mustard, cotton, chickpea and...

-Down to Earth Civil society organisations claim private companies like Pepsi and Coca Cola are funding agencies partnering Indian health ministry The two-day South Asia conference on nutrition, currently on in Delhi, began on a controversial note on Wednesday. Some of the public health experts attending the conference under the aegis of Alliance Against Conflict of Interest (AACI) objected to the Indian health ministry hosting the event in collaboration with agencies funded...

-The Hindu   Obesity among children due to rampant consumption of junk Food has reached epidemic proportions. With India already in the grip of this dangerous global trend, the government needs to remove its blinkers on the processed Food industry One of the first declarations of the newly elected government in June was a proposal to ban unhealthy or junk Food (defined as Food high on fat, sugar and salt) in school...