The 2023 Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor, a flagship publication of AKADEMIYA2063 and the International Food Policy Research Institute, provides an overview of trade in agriculture in Africa, including analysis of short- and long-term trends and drivers behind Africa’s global trade, intra-African trade, and trade within Africa’s regional economic communities. The …
Ahead of the presidential elections NCP chief and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday got his way, with the government yielding to most of his demands regarding export policies for agricultural items. Early last month, the key UPA ally had shot off a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to …
Barely 24 hours before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to reconvene a meeting to discuss policies on export of farm products and storage of grains, the government has conceded another major demand of Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar by allowing export of caesin, a value-added milk product. “Export of casein …
Committee to review demand-supply situation after three weeks to prevent abnormal rise in prices The commerce ministry has decided to lift the ban on export of cotton and allow traders to apply afresh for registration. The ban was lifted barely hours before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was scheduled to chair …
The government today lifted the ban on cotton exports and allowed fresh registration for the cotton marketing year ending September 30, based on the revised production estimates provided by the Cotton Advisory Board (CAB). Commerce and textiles minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and chairman of Prime Minister’s Economic …
New Delhi The government is set to lift a ban on fresh cotton export registration, although efforts to resolve the controversial issue amicably by putting a cap on further shipments eluded a consensus on Sunday, a day before the meeting convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss farm exports. …
The Senate Agriculture Committee on Thursday approved a proposed five-year farm bill that seeks to make steep cuts to subsidies while expanding government crop-insurance programs. The proposal met sharp resistance from lawmakers in Southern states, who say it goes too far in peeling back billions of dollars in subsidies that …
To attract investments, Maharashtra has rolled out a red carpet for the Gujarat textile sector. State textile minister Naseem Khan plans to lead a high level delegation to Ahmedabad in May to ask the textile industry in Gujarat to invest in Maharashtra in order to take the benefit of the …
Acerage down on low yield, weak prices & export curbs The cotton export debacle has created an oversupply of Bt seeds in the market with angry farmers expected to plant less area in the coming summer season. Companies are bracing for a price war in branded cotton seed, a far …
A coalition of more than 2,000 U.S. farmers and food companies said Wednesday it is taking legal action to force government regulators to analyze potential problems with proposed biotech crops and the weed-killing chemicals to be sprayed over them. Dow AgroSciences, a unit of Dow Chemical, and Monsanto Co. are …
Coinciding with global anti-GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) Week, a group of women farmers in Medak district of AP took out a rally to protest against the state government’s failure to check the spread of Bt cotton in the state. The anti-GMO campaign is being spearheaded in the state by Deccan …
Indian cotton farmers should not be asked to bear burden of subsidising textile mills, says Pawar Sharp divisions within the Congressled UPA government on policy matters saw agriculture minister Sharad Pawar shooting off a critical letter against two of his ministerial colleagues to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Pawar, who put …
Irked by curbs on milk, cotton and sugar exports, Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar has shot off a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stating that the government’s policies are hurting farmers who are being asked to subsidise the industry. Mr Pawar wrote to the Prime Minister on Tuesday, a …
A group of ministers on Monday decided to continue with the ban on cotton exports, even as the prohibition on outbound shipments had led to intense political pressure on the government. "For the time being, there is no move to ease the export ban,&" said a senior official who participated …
The Southern Action on Genetic Engineering (SAGE) has alleged that the ‘success story of Bt cotton' in the last 10 years is only a hype. When Bt cotton spread to 85 per cent of the country's cotton area in 2009-10, the yield was 474 kg of lint a hectare. “This …
A large body of work has tried to attribute the remarkable growth of Chinese agriculture between 1979 and 1984 to the dismantling of collectives. This paper critically reviews the evidence and finds that decollectivisation did not contribute to agricultural growth in the early 1980s. In particular, its response to Lin …
This has reference to a series of articles published in DNA in March 2012 quoting certain NGOs who blamed Bt-cotton as being responsible for crop failures and farmer suicides! These are false and totally baseless allegations deliberately intensified to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Bt-cotton on March 26 in …
Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Sunil Jhakhar has welcomed the Punjab Government’s decision to lower the BT cottonseed prices. Thanking the government for taking note of his statement on the floor of the House during the just concluded assembly session, he said the decision would benefit a large number of …
While a number of empirical studies have demonstrated the role of Bt cotton adoption in increasing Indian cotton productivity at the farm level, there has been questioning around the overall contribution of Bt cotton to the average cotton yield increase observed these last ten years in India. This study examines …
The report released on the occasion of a one-day workshop called “10 years of Bt cotton in Karnataka: Whither other cotton?”, with partial support from the Karnataka State Biodiversity Board on March 29th 2012. This report exposes the reality of fluctuating yields of cotton in the state, increasing use of …
This review of a decade of Bt cotton in MP by Beej Swaraj Abhiyan & Hamara Beej Abhiyan finds that that there have been no gains in the state as claimed by Bt cotton proponents & calls for strict regulations to regulate Bt cotton seed industry. A report released by …
