Recent spikes in staple food prices resulting from the invasion of Ukraine have once again highlighted the difficulty faced by low-income countries that rely on imports for a substantial portion of their
The cyclone in Myanmar will hit the import of pulses and consequently push up prices, which are already ruling high. Shipments will be delayed, official sources told The Hindu. Nearly 10 lakh tonnes of pulses are scheduled to be imported this year. These include over three lakh tonnes each of tur, urad and moong dal. Delivery of shipments of about 30,000 quintals each was slated to have been completed at Indian ports by October.
Effective management from the production stage to the distribution stage is necessary to maintain the price line. The PDS has a crucial role in ensuring this. The prices of essential articles and commodities have been rising over the last several months, and the life of the poor people, the common person and the middle classes has become miserable. The government has initiated certain steps to control prices, but their impact is insufficient to compensate for the suffering.
DHAKA, Bangladesh: Potatoes are not traditionally high on the menu for the 140 million people in Bangladesh, but a surge in rice and wheat prices has prompted the government to popularize the humble spud as a substitute food. "Think potato, grow potato and eat potato," was the main slogan of a three-day potato festival in Dhaka last week.
Instead of blaming India and other developing nations for the rise in food prices, Americans should rethink their energy policy
International blame game is going on over the rising prices of food items. America is blaming the poor of China and India for rising prices. India is blaming America's crop diversion for the same. At the same time, same type of blame game is being played in India too. Indian politicians looked very agitated over the remarks of American President Bush when he blamed increased consumption of food by Indian poor. The same politicians, however, forgot that a few months earlier, same type of remark was made by a central minister too.
In the classic Hollywood western, a cowboy portrayed by John Wayne gallops across the sagebrush steppe and rocky ridges of the American West with only his horse for a companion. What the films don't show is the cowboy buying and hauling hay for his horse, or what happens to the horse when it is too aged, infirm or irascible to ride. Those more mundane details are at the heart of a debate about growing cases of mistreatment of horses in the United States, at a time when hay and grain prices are skyrocketing and when options for disposing of unwanted horses are dwindling.
The global food crisis is inspiring a broad new coalition on Capitol Hill seeking to change US policies on ethanol production. Interests ranging from US food manufacturers and livestock producers to environmentalists, humanitarian aid agencies and consumer groups are calling for Congress to rethink so-called "food to fuel" mandates that would require the US to use 9bn gallons of ethanol this year. Critics say the mandates are driving up the price of corn, wheat and other grains, leading to record global food prices and political instability.
Blame your biofuel fixation, not India and China, Bush is told LOGIC and empirical facts do not necessarily form a part of United States President George W. Bush's assertions. Five years ago, he went to war against Iraq to unearth weapons of mass destruction that weren't there. And now, in 2008, he blames India's burgeoning middle classes for the northward
Baskets and averages have no meaning when you have extreme economic variations tough job M. Mohammed Ibrahim in Pondy Bazaar, T. Nagar. As the clamour over rising prices grows, some senior economists say that the way that the government calculates the consumer price index and the food basket needs to change. For most people, a food basket is the woven container you carry along when you go grocery shopping. With the recent focus on inflation, however, it is taking on a new meaning.
Myanmar is struggling to feed its people in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis -- in part because the regime has been forcing some farmers to stop growing rice in a plan to produce biofuel instead. In 2005 the military government's leader Than Shwe ordered a national drive to plant jatropha, a poisonous nut he hoped would be the cornerstone of a state industry that would capitalise on growing world demand for biofuels.
