Deutsche Welle/The Telegraph El Nino, a natural climate phenomenon that alters global weather patterns, has officially returned after four years, threatening to exacerbate already elevated food inflation. Growing warnings about El Nino have already helped coffee, sugar and cocoa prices to rise sharply in recent weeks, Germany's Biggest private lender, Deutsche Bank, said in a research note last week. Other food commodities are expected to follow as harvests get impacted by severe...

Carbon Copy The India Meteorological Department (IMD) this week delivered its first long-range forecast for this year’s monsoon. In terms of total rainfall observed over the season, the IMD expects this year’s monsoon to bring 96% of the Long Period Average (with a modelling error of +/-5%). The forecast, if it materialises, places monsoon performance within the “normal” range, albeit narrowly.  Despite the normal forecast, mid-way into summer 2023, India is jittery....

KEY TRENDS   • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...

The Print In compounds outside wheat mandis across Punjab, gunny bags full of golden grain are piled up in huge quantities. Less than a month into the procurement season, the state has already contributed more than 100 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of wheat in 2023-24 to the central government’s reserves. Haryana and Madhya Pradesh are the next Big contributors with around 55 LMT and 50 LMT, respectively. Earlier this year, unseasonal rains...

Reuters Unseasonal rains and hailstorms have damaged ripening, winter-planted crops such as wheat in India's fertile northern, central and western plains, exposing thousands of farmers to losses and raising the risk of further food price inflation. Torrential rains on Sunday and Monday lashed Punjab, Haryana parts of Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh state, which account for the bulk of wheat output in India, the world's Biggest producer after China, flattening crops and...