Agribusiness / Food in India
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INDIA, 2017/07/08
One may rightly ask why the three topics of trade, food security and new technology may be ‘challenges’ for agriculture and by extension food and fibre production. How do all three help ensure a food fasten world?
World trade deals such as those falling under the remit of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have long been difficult to negotiate particularly those encompassing agriculture. And the same goes for Regional deals. The United States has pulled out of the newly-agreed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and wants to re-negotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). There is as well the similar situation of the United Kingdom wishing to pull out of the world’s major trading block, thinking it can quickly negotiate new trade deals with other nations and world areas.
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INDIA, 2016/11/23
As demonetisation enters its second week, traders in Patna’s Maroofganj mandi are seeing something unprecedented.
In the last seven days, the supply of new stocks in this wholesale market, which supplies cooking oil, spices, rice, wheat and pulses to shopkeepers across Patna, has plummeted. The supply of cooking oil, for instance, is down by 80%.
Talk to traders selling spices, grains or pulses and you hear similar numbers. “Do you see how quiet this market is?” said an accountant at a rice shop. “Till 10 days ago, you would not have been able to walk down this street.”
In the same period, orders from shopkeepers have fallen steeply as well. Most of them cannot buy as much stock as before, said Abhijit Kumar, who runs a wholesale shop for spices, because they have only Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes – both derecognised as legal tender by the government.
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INDIA, 2016/09/29
India’s government has been trying to get foreign retailers to open stores in India and has in the completed two years partially relaxed some of the rules that were putting them off.
In an interview, Minister for Food Processing Industries, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, explained how she thinks foreign companies can tap India’s vast and urbanizing people at a time at the same time as the country’s economy is one of the fastest-growing in the world, and how the government is trying to help them.
