The US on Wednesday said prospects of a free trade agreement with India are "too premature' as it depends on the opening of market for agricultural products, though progress has been made in manufacturing and services. "You can see some progress in manufacturing and services. But the true FTA would have to include agriculture. I think it is too premature,' US ambassador to India David Mulford said here. Currently, India is at an advance stage of negotiating a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement with the European Union.

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.

THE State will soon take steps to introduce e-agriculture. This is part of reforms meant to equip agri-extension centres with hi-tech facilities so as to train farmers in modern farming methods, said Surjit K Chowdry, Secretary of Agriculture of the TN Government. Talking to journalists here on the sidelines of the Annual Rose Show, he said these hi-tech agri-extension centres would be established in 385 blocks in the state to cater to the needs of the agricultural community in tune with scientific farming.

Potato growers of Jalandhar region plan to install grading machines of international standard to cut cost and increase accuracy of grading of the crop. The growers have approached Holland-based company Allround Nu-Tech for the purpose, Jalandhar Potato Growers Association general secretary Jaswinder Singh Sangha said on Tuesday. "At present, potatoes are graded by hand on the field. The grading machines will not only cut cost, which is Rs 1 per kg, but also ensure accurate grading,' he said after attending a demonstration of the machine by the company.

Minister for Agriculture and Cooperatives Abdul Aziz Zargar and Minister for Forests Qazi Mohammad Afzal today flagged off a team of 40 progressive farmers including women for tour to outside state. The team would visit Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Uttarakhand to get acquainted with the latest agriculture technology.

Governor, Lt. Gen (Retd) S. K. Sinha has appreciated the headway made by Sher-i-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences & Technology (SKUAST), Jammu in academic and research fields during the past few years even as Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad urged agricultural scientists in Jammu & Kashmir to prepare for the impending challenge of food shortage likely to confront the world.

Amid a situation of high food prices posing new challenges for poor net food-importing countries, biofuel crops displacing food crops out of cultivation and the stalemate in the WTO negotiation, the director of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), Bob Watson, has some sane words