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A Bill of rights is no solution, improved PDS is
Business Standard / New Delhi July 07, 2010, 0:19 IST

P. Sainath

The official line is simple. Since we cannot afford to feed all the hungry, there must only be as many hungry as we can afford to feed.

Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI: The Food Processing Ministry will give priority to farmers, self-help groups and women for providing grant-in-aid in setting up food processing enterprises. It has also identified Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Jammu and Kashmir for preferential treatment in financial support to set up food processing units.

SHILLONG, July 2

Food Security Bill Set For Radical Rewrite; To Benefit More, Add Nutritional Value
M Rajshekhar NEW DELHI

THE National Advisory Council (NAC), it appears, is set to radically rewrite the the Food Security Bill.

The National Advisory Council, chaired by Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, met for the second time today after its recent revival and unanimously endorsed the idea of universal access to the public distribution system in rural areas. It was agreed that a universalised PDS should be implemented initially in 150 districts, a member said.

Nistula Hebbar

New Delhi: The proposal that the poor be given direct cash subsidy under the food security law when grain is not available may not go through with many members of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) denouncing the move.

The global economy has faced two serious but unconnected crises in quick succession during the past four years. The years 2007 and 2008 witnessed an unprecedented rise in food prices which forced the global community to pay more attention to the agricultural sector.

Wayanad, which has been in the news for the high number of farmer suicides, is also known for widespread homestead farming. A typical home garden integrates trees with field crops, livestock, poultry and fish. Home gardens form a dominant and promising land use system and maintain high levels of productivity, stability and sustainability, say A V Santhoshkumar and Kaoru Ichikawa.

The Green Revolution impacted livestock-rearing as well as agriculture. Farmers were encouraged to shift from low-input backyard systems to corporatised capital-intensive systems. As a result, write Nitya S Ghotge and Sagari R Ramdas, there was an artificial divide between livestock-rearing and agriculture, leading to the further crumbling of fragile livelihoods of small and landless farmers.

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