HYDERABAD: Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said the Centre would import one million tonne of edible oil every month for supply to various States for sale to below poverty line families (BPL) at a subsidised price.

On this count, the Centre will bear a burden of Rs.1,500 crore, allowing a subsidy of Rs.15 a kg to the BPL households.

The new 'records' of most crops are not significantly higher than those achieved in the past.

The updated crop production estimates released by Krishi Bhawan for 2007-08 and the previous year, showing new production records for most crops, may suggest an impressive performance of agriculture, but a closer look at the numbers shows that the new peaks are not significantly above the levels scaled in the past. The average annual growth beyond the previous high levels has been rather modest in most crops, barring cotton.

DH News Service, Hubli:

Former minister and senior Congress leader H K Patil will soon meet Primary Minister Manmohan Singh and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and appeal them to take up cloud seeding in different parts of the country to save farmers from continuous droughts. Speaking to media persons here on Monday, Mr Patil said there was an urgent need for exploring the modern technology to bail out farmers, especially living in drought-prone areas, who were suffering due to lack of rains.

Ranchi: The move to acquire land from ICAR's Ranchi-based Horticulture & Agro Forestry Research Programme (HARP) for a housing scheme for MPs and MLAs has been shelved. "We do not want to get into a land dispute,' Jharkhand Assembly Speaker Alamgir Alam said on Wednesday.

Gargi Parsai Buoyed by the production of 78 million tonnes of wheat this rabi and a procurement of 222 lakh tonnes for the Public Distribution System, the government may intervene in the market with open sale of wheat to contain prices. Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said here that the government had set aside about three million tonnes of wheat for the open market sale in those States where the wheat prices continue to remain high. The pricemade available thus, to augment supplies, would be fixed at lower than the market rate, the Minister said.

Agriculture and food minister Sharad Pawar has said the restrictions imposed on export of major foodgrain are not permanent and the government could lift the ban once the supply situation improves. "I am confident that prices will go down and in such a situation we don't want to continue with these types of restrictions," Pawar said when asked about the demand being raised by world leaders on lifting export ban.

At around 11 a.m., Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar eagerly awaits an SMS. No, the message is not about the Indian Premier League. It is from his officials who send him the scores on a day-to-day basis on harvesting and procurement of foodgrain. Last week, as his slim mobile phone silently whirred, he checked the message and smiled to himself. His department had set a new record by procuring 210 lakh tonne

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India will review bans on exports of wheat and basmati rice, but shipments of other grades of rice will not be allowed at least until November, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said. India last exported wheat in the 2003-04 fiscal year and became an importer in the past two years, but a bumper crop has helped the government purchase from local farmers a record 24.8 million tonnes of the staple this year. Pawar said on Thursday that a government panel, called the Empowered Group of Ministers , (EGoM), would soon consider lifting the ban on wheat exports.