The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has cut its global wheat production forecast for 2010 due to the impact of poor weather on crops in recent weeks, but allayed fears of a new food crisis, noting that current stocks should be adequate. The global wheat production forecast is now expected to be 651 million tonnes, down from the 676 million tonnes reported in June, the Rome-based agency said in...

Wheat prices have staged the most drastic rise in more than 50 years, as a drought in Russia fuels growing worries that it could lead to a global shortage of the grain. Harsh heat and a lack of rain in Russia have killed half of the crop in some hard-hit areas. The slump in production in one of the world's most fertile breadbaskets has pushed prices up 62% since early June,...

Agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan has warned that India’s food security is being steadily imperilled by the sharp decline in agricultural growth. Speaking on the Ministry of Earth Sciences Foundation Day Lecture 2010, Dr Swaminathan warned that in 2005-6, the agricultural growth was 5.2 per cent of GDP but according to Planning Commission statistics, it has dipped to 0.2 per cent in 2009-10. This would decline with a projected two degree temperature rise...

The goal of food for all can be achieved only through greater and integrated attention to production, procurement, preservation and public distribution. The President, in her address to Parliament on June 4, 2009, announced: “My Government proposes to enact a new law — the National Food Security Act — that will provide a statutory basis for a framework which assures food security for all. Every family below the poverty line in...

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...