The Rajasthan Government on Thursday released the first instalment

That's what Salatin, 51, the second-generation owner of Polyface Farm, commands for a two-hour, personally escorted tour of what may be the most famous family-owned pastures in America. Polyface is a centerpiece of Michael Pollan's best seller The Omnivore's Dilemma: A History of Four Meals, a treatise against the health and environmental costs of industrial agriculture in which Pollan likens the sweet, warm scent of Salatin's compost to "the forest floor in summertime."

Surging prices for agricultural commodities - and the fear of shortages at home - have prompted some countries to impose restrictions on exports. But their moves threaten to prolong the current global food crisis - and even exacerbate it. Countries such as Argentina, Kazakhstan, India and Vietnam have stopped their farmers selling crops abroad or taxed exports heavily in an effort to keep local markets well-supplied and local prices for those crops low.

Good returns: Women Self-Help Groups being trained in making value added products. Cultivating is futile without processing and value addition, especially when our farmers are struggling to find ways to increase their income from farms. Local value added agricultural food production is an important strategy to sustain many small and marginal farmers.

Social stability will be shattered if the price-hike of food continues, said the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The impact of the soaring prices of food on the poorer section of the people is very significant and may turn out to be devastating, said the president of the MCCI, Latifur Rahman, at a meeting with the Bangladesh Bank's governor, Salehuddin Ahmed, on Wednesday. Market imperfections, domestic supply shortfalls and imported inflation are the three main reasons behind the rising inflation, he pointed out.

Amid a deepening world hunger crisis, leading food aid groups are calling for a

The nations that taught us that state meddling in economic matters was blasphemy are now nationalising banks, bailing out brigands, and pouring in funds to stop factories from closing down.

Atypical skinny, bearded farmer was examining his paddy field, which was attacked by a disease unknown to him and his co-farmers. Anxiety and uncertainty shadowed his face as the leaves of his hybrid paddy plants were withering fast (Prothom Alo, April 4, 2008).

ONLY George Orwell could have invented