Chhattisgarh will bear an additional subsidy of Rs. 2,300 crore

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh does not favour proposed cash transfer for food and will not implement the scheme in his State.

“Food security means taking food to people’s doorstep,” he told journalists here on Saturday. The Chief Minister said that while cash transfer may be okay for fertilisers and other welfare schemes, it was not required as a substitute for grains. “If you give Rs. 600 in the hands of a poor person without a proper banking system, banks being far-flung and fluctuations in food prices, the idea will not work.”

Plea to invest one per cent of agricultural GDP in research

“The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is asking the Government to invest one per cent of the total agricultural Gross Domestic Product in agricultural research for the XII Five Year Plan,” S. Ayyappan, Director General of ICAR, said here on Wednesday. Delivering the convocation address of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, he pointed out that the agricultural research system at the national level was so strong that it was able to provide for the 122 crore population.

Around 40,000 fair price shops (FPS) across Odisha downed their shutters on Tuesday in protest against Central government’s plan to transfer cash subsidy directly to the FPS consumers.

“In response to call given by the All India Fair Price Dealers’ Federation (AIFPDF), all the fair price shops across the state downed their shutters. The control shop owners will stage rally in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday in support of their demands,” said president of Odisha Fair Price Retailers Welfare Association (OFPSRWA), Nagendra Jena.

Though modernisation of food chains has allowed farmers to have more control of their produce, the benefits are not always shared equally

Major Asian countries which have a large agriculture sector need to make their farm-to-market supply chain more efficient and cost effective to keep food prices in check and ensure long-term food security, a recent study by the Asian Development Bank has said. The study showed that though modernisation of food chains has allowed farmers to have more control of their produce, the benefits are not always shared equally, with large and medium-sized farmers typically getting the lion’s share of subsidies and marginal farmers largely missing out.

The European Union (EU) has announced on October 17 that the amount of biofuels that will be required to make up the transportation energy mix by 2020 has been halved from 10 per cent to 5 per cent.

The rollback mostly affects first-generation biofuels, which are produced from food crops such as corn, sugarcane, and potato. The new policy is in place to mitigate the backfiring of switching from less-clean fossil fuels to first-generation biofuels. A study conducted in 2009-2012 by the EU found that greenhouse gas emissions were on the rise because of conversion of agricultural land for planting first-generation biofuel crops. It also became known that large quantities of carbon stock had been released into the atmosphere because of forest clearance and peatland-draining.