Bhubaneswar: Alleging tardy procurement of surplus rice by FCI from Odisha, chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday sought prime minister's intervention for moving at least one lakh MT rice from the state every month. Despite request by the state and my food minister's meeting with union food minister, FCI has not moved a single grain from the state in April and May, the chief minister said in a letter to Manmohan Singh.

New Delhi With no political consensus as yet to allow the foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, India needs to undertake structural reforms urgently to curb food inflation that surged to a 15-month high of 10.49% in April on dearer vegetables and protein-based products.

Economists said these reforms should focus on four fundamental aspects: raising productivity, curbing wastages, better distribution and delivery system, and ensuring fair returns to producers to keep them engaged in the farm sector.

New Delhi: Food Corporation of India (FCI) has warned that unless the government can distribute 750 lakh tonnes of food grain, there will be no storage space for the bumper harvest being currently procured, the food ministry told Rajya Sabha on Monday. The crisis of plenty has been engaging the government for a while as it is under pressure to distribute food grain to the poor or intervene in some manner to cool inflation, and the FCI alarm provides the clearest indication of the scale of the problem.

Food Minister K V Thomas on Monday said the problem of foodgrain storage was due to procurement exceeding targets because of record production and encouraging purchase policy, and assured the state governments all help in providing jute bags to overcome the “problem of plenty”. In the Rajya Sabha, he proposed an all-party meeting to work out a procurement policy to avoid such a crisis in future.

It is a good news that Punjab no longer cheers for. The state is headed for a record wheat harvest of over 120 lakh tonnes this Rabi season surpassing all previous milestones. It is almost 10 lakh tonnes higher than the previous record of 110 lakh tonnes. The high production has come from better yield per acre, an average of 7 per cent more, owing to cool weather conditions and timely winter rain that also brought down the incidence of pest attack and disease.

New Delhi With the grain stocks held with Food Corporation of India (FCI) and other state government owned agencies crossing a record level, the food ministry has proposed additional allocation of grain to BPL and APL families for dealing with storage crunch.

Under the proposal sent to finance ministry, the food ministry has proposed to hike grain allocation for the estimated 18 crore APL families to 15 kg per month from prevailing 10 kg per month. This will result in excess grains allocation of 6.5 million tonne.

New Delhi As part of its plan to create two-million-tonne-capacity silos for storing grain across the country, the government has approved creation of silos in 10 states with the capacities ranging from 4 lakh tonne to 50,000 tonne.

The state-level committees on silos are identifying suitable locations, which would be built via the private-public-partnership mode. Food minister KV Thomas said that while 4-lakh-tonne-capacity silos would be built in Punjab, Madhya Pradesh would get silos with a capacity 3.5 lakh tonne. Haryana and UP would get silos with 3-lakh-tonne capacity each.

The requirement of foodgrains for public distribution system and other welfare scheme is about 61 million tonnes which is 30 per cent of the nation's grain output, the Rajya Sabha was informed today. The Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution Minister, Mr K.V. Thomas, said during Question Hour that as directed by the Supreme Court, 50 lakh tonne foodgrains have been earmarked for 74 poorest districts in the country. Of this, only two-three lakh tonne foodgrains could be distributed under the direction of Supreme Court, he said.

‘Raise PDS Allocation Or Wheat Will Go Waste Due to Lack Of Storage Facilities’
India could see unprecedented levels of foodgrain rotting this year in government godowns unless the central government increases the amount of grains it distributes to the poor through PDS across the country, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has warned in an internal note, which was accessed by TOI.

The total stocks across the country in the central pool are expected to be an all-time record of 750.17 lakh tonnes in June 2012 — almost one lakh tonne more than last year.

The International Rice Research Institute recently said that the rice wasted in the Philippines ever year could feed several million people.
Citing a study done by Food and Agriculture Organisation, the IRRI in its publication ‘Rice Today’ said the Philippines, the world’s biggest rice importer for several years, wasted rice that is worth minimum $5,35,00 every day, or at least $223 million a year, enough to feed 4.3 million.
The study also said all the countries with rice as a staple wasted the cereal in huge amounts.