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 …
A food crisis looms large in Bangladesh after two waves of floods and a cyclone. Three natural disasters within four months have ruined the late-monsoon aman paddy, the second major cereal crop in the country. As a result, food prices have soared and the government is finding it difficult to …
Wheat prices may rise further because farmers in India, the world's second-biggest grower, may harvest a smaller crop after dry weather delayed planting. The crop may decline 5 per cent to as low as 72 million metric tonnes in the March-April harvest from 75.8 million tonnes a year earlier, S …
Some of the most profound and direct impacts of climate change over the next few decades will be on agricultural and food systems. A research by Lobell et al show that increasing temperatures and declining precipitation over semiarid regions are likely to reduce yields for corn, wheat, rice, and other …
The recent rapid increases in the international prices of many basic food commodities have raised many questions from policy-makers, the media, the public, and the farmers who have the opportunity to benefit from the situation. Those who have the most reason to be concerned are the vulnerable people who have …
China has levied taxes on exports of food grains such as wheat, corn, rice and soybean from January 1, 2008. The move is apparently aimed at reining in surging domestic food prices, which have driven up inflation. Food prices rose by 18.2 per cent in November 2007, an 11-year high. …
"We apologise for recent price increases," reads the sign over the bread counter, "but they are due to global factors beyond our control." This is not a Third World food stall but an upscale supermarket in Brussels, capital of the European Union, whose farming system was once notorious for the …
Lahu Fale does not have to think twice about market availability, price and transportation when it comes to deciding which crops to grow. Now he and other farmers in Pune's Kolwan Valley can sell their produce in the neighbourhood for a reasonable price. It was not always so. Earlier, the …
While cutting down rainforests to grow palm oil for biofuels may constitute "madness" (1 December 2007, p 50), burning other vegetable oils is no more sane, nor less damaging to Indonesia's rainforests. Indonesia is expected to increase its palm oil production by more than half over the next 10 years. …
At the behest of the Government of India, the three national commodity exchanges, set up a little over three years ago, were required to organise futures trades in all commodities, whether of agricultural origin or not, through electronic online trading systems. The authorities did not stop at that. They even …
This paper provides an overview of selected trends and conditions of ecosystem services, in particular, food production and impacts on the environment based on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. It then describes outcomes for future ecosystem services under alternative development pathways, with a focus on tradeoffs between food security and the …
The Commodity Market Review, a biennial publication of the FAO trade and markets division, examines in depth issues relating to agricultural commodity market developments that are deemed by FAO as current and crucial for FAO's member countries. This biennial CMR is devoted to exploring in depth a variety of issues …
In the wake of consistent rise of rate of inflation during the first quarter of calendar year 2007 and responding to the concerns expressed at various fora and by various opinions including by Parliamentary Standing Committee of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in its 17th Report, …
Conditions are ripe for an upturn in India's dairy sector. The government has lifted its ban on the export of milk powder at a time when increasing demand is sending prices of dairy products skyrocketing globally. If the market worked on a straightforward play of demand and supply, Indian producers
Sugarcane growers in Uttar Pradesh feel sold out to mills Frustration is growing among sugarcane growers in Uttar Pradesh. First private sugar mills refused to begin crushing and now the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has directed mill-owners to pay farmers Rs 110 per 100 kg of the …
Food prices may climb for years because of the expansion of farming for fuel, climate changes, and demand from richer consumers in fast-growing developing nations, according to a report from a food research group. Biofuel expansion alone could push maize prices up by over two-thirds by 2020 and increase oilseed …
The government ought to defend the interests of the small producer international milk prices are spiralling, so one assumes now is a good time to be a dairy owner in India, the world's largest milk producer. But it is not. Milk prices in the Indian market are controlled through informal …
FOR as long as most people can remember, food has been getting cheaper and farming has been in decline. In 1974-2005 food prices on world markets fell by three-quarters in real terms. Food today is so cheap that the West is battling gluttony even as it scrapes piles of half-eaten …
the Union government increased the minimum support price of wheat, paddy, sugarcane, mustard, rapeseed and other agricultural commodities on October 9. The announcement was made after the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the prime minister, accepted the recommendations on the minimum support price (msp) by the Commission of …
In February this year, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar announced that the country could export wheat in the near future. "If the current weather persists and the country's wheat production exceeds 72.5 million tonnes, I will allow exports,' he said. But the minister seems to have done a volte-face on …
