The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
The state government has decided to facilitate Rs23,250 crore crop loans to the farmers ahead of the crucial kharif season. This is to avert the financial crisis following dismissal of the board of directors of the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank by the Reserve Bank of India. Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan …
Ranchi, May 23: Chief secretary S.K. Choudhary today directed agriculture and co-operative departments to prepare proposals to extend crop insurance benefits to farmers during the current sowing season. Agriculture secretary A.K. Singh said another meeting would be held tomorrow to work out modalities and a proposal
Colombia plans to nearly double agricultural land growing crops for food and biofuel, part of a new investment boom in the country as violence ebbs from a decades-long internal conflict fueled by drug profits. The idea is to transform the vast eastern plains, dotted for years with illicit coca plantations, …
Fears large-scale diversion of grain for manufacture of ethanol by the alcohol industry The food ministry is set to oppose the mandatory 5% ethanol blending programme, fearing diversion of foodgrain for manufacture of ethanol. The ministry has called for the report of the expert panel headed by Planning Commission member …
Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa said that the government had taken the important decision to provide fertiliser subsidy for all food crops under the Mahinda Chinthana Idiri Dekma. Minister Rajapaksa was addressing tea and rubber smallholders, large scale tea and rubber growers and farmers on Thursday. He said that the …
The recently sown cotton crop on around 37,000 hectares in Ferozepur and Muktsar districts has been destroyed following a freak hailstorm and rain two days earlier. Reports received here by the Agriculture Department indicate the newly sown cotton crop has been partially damaged in Bathinda and Mansa districts. Around 7,000 …
The production of food grains is projected to increase in the current fiscal year compared to last year. According to the preliminary projections of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC) released on Wednesday, the total production of food gains will increase by 11 percent this year. The MoAC's projection …
A dire drought that has plagued Texas and parts of Oklahoma expanded across the key farming state of Kansas over the last week, adding to struggles of wheat farmers already dealing with weather-ravaged fields. Harvest in Kansas, the top U.S. wheat-growing state, is set to begin within weeks. But a …
Around 51 agricultural foods are contaminated with pesticide residues and of these, 20 per cent has pesticide residues more than the maximum residue limit in India. India produces 85,000 tonnes of pesticides every year. The pesticide endosulfan was recently banned by the government, but many other chemical pesticides continue to …
WHEN UNION Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar announced a bumper harvest last month, “the highest since 1947”, commodities markets perked up, sniffing food export opportunities. With a record 236 million tonnes of foodgrain produced in 2010-11, government godowns are bursting at the seams. Mountains of grain lie in the open, as …
Changes in the climate are already having an effect on crop yields -- but not yet a very big one THE problems climate change looks likely to bring in the future may increasingly be visible in the records of the past. Not just in the far-off ages of surging sea …
Massive grain procurement to meet the requirements under the proposed national food security law could drive out the private sector and have larger implications on the state of the domestic procurement market, a study on food and nutritional security has warned. Apart from impacting exports and cereal price in the …
MUMBAI: Alarmed by the massive damage caused to food crops the agricultural produce by monkeys, neighbouring the Ratnagiri zilla parishad has prepared an ambitious Rs 50 lakh plan to tackle the menace. ''Farmers in the Konkan region were facing a lot of problems due to the increasing monkey menace in …
Punjab is heading towards record production of wheat this season. Reports emerging from Malwa, Majha and Doaba regions have clearly indicated that the state
This position paper by the National Rainfed Area Authority attempts to address the challenges of food security through analysis of the present trend of growth in production, procurement and safe storage of different foodgrain crops, their future potential and possible impact on national food security of diversification into non-PDS, fruits, …
This paper examines the potential health effects of foods derived from genetically modified (GM) plants. While such an important topic, the database on the likely biological effects of GM foods is woefully inadequate. In the absence of safety studies, the lack of evidence that GM food is unsafe cannot be …
The Asia-Pacific Consortium on Agricultural Biotechnology (APCoAB) and Trust for Advancement of Agricultural Sciences (TAAS) organized a “Stakeholders’ Interface on GM Food Crops” on 19 May 2011 at National Agricultural Science Complex, New Delhi to deliberate on issues related to adoption of GM food crops in India. The event was …
JAIPUR: A two-day state level workshop on Kharif-2011 kicked-off at Jawahar Kala Kendra (JKK) on Wednesday. R K Meena, principal secretary, department of agriculture, told officials, "We have received a Rs 222-crore grant from the Centre to develop agriculture in the state." Meena spoke on policies and schemes launched by …
