Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee would attend the G-20 meeting next week, wherein world leaders would come together for discussing issues related to food inflation and food security, and excess liquidity in world markets that is leading to spike in asset and commodity prices.

Sources said that the leaders will also review the impact of future trading on commodity prices besides reforms in the

Sri Lanka government has roughly estimated that the recent round of floods have caused a damage worth of 50 billion rupees to the economy while affecting over 1.2 million people of 18 districts.

Minister of Disaster Management Mahinda Amaraweera says that thousands of acres of cultivations, around 450 small and big irrigation schemes, at least 75,000 cattle and many thousands of poultry and oth

Asia is leading the afforestation activity in the world with a significant contribution from India which is adding 3,00,000 hectares of forest every year, a senior UN official said. “I would highlight India, which still has important population growth.

India continues to be among the top 10 producers of marine and inland capture fish, according to a FAO report on Monday.

India has seen 80.8% growth in inland capture fisheries produce between 2004 and 2008, to 9,53,106 tonne; and continues to be among the top 10 producers from marine and inland capture fisheries, with 4.3 million tonne produced in 2008; and the nation also features in the list

The United Nations, Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) recently released, the first global guideline for bycatch management and reduction of fishing discards which covers all types of bycatch including discards, that is, fish that are caught accidently and then thrown back into the sea either dead or dying.

Unmanaged bycatch and discards threaten the long term sustainability of many fishe

The problem is all pervasive as the prices of almost all food items have been rising
In a scenario that is all familiar in India and for that matter in many other countries too, rising food prices have become an extremely sensitive issue with major political and social ramifications that go well beyond the economic ones.

Ajay Modi / New Delhi January 7, 2011, 0:20 IST

Managing high agriculture commodity prices is becoming a concern for policy makers in India as well as globally.

Global food prices rose in December, with the FAO Food Price Index at a record high, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Wednesday, past 2008 highs when rising food prices sparked riots in a number of countries.

Up for the sixth month in a row and fueled by surging sugar prices and rises in cereals and oils, the index was the highest since records began in 1990, in nominal terms, a

Ananya Dutta

KOLKATA: There is need for a concerted and coordinated effort by different countries to promote awareness and prevent outbreak of a pandemic like avian influenza, said officials of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) here on Monday.

A disease like the bird flu is not the problem for India alone, it is the problem of a region and needs to be addressed as such, it said.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation