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Farmers protest across India against Modi’s farm market reforms
New Delhi/Mumbai | Reuters — Farmers’ protests against new laws liberalizing agricultural markets spread across India on Tuesday, as farm organizations called for a nationwide strike after inconclusive talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. In eastern and western states, farmers blocked roads and squatted on railway tracks, delaying hordes of people getting to work,

High food prices hurting India’s poor
Inflation pain expected to persist for months yet
New Delhi | Reuters — India’s retail inflation may stay elevated for at least three more months after hitting a six-year high in October, as excess rain has damaged standing crops and seedlings, while edible oils that the country imports have become expensive. The high prices are a particular cause of concern for India’s hundreds

How COVID-19 is upending global food supply chains
Cows fed strawberries in India, watermelons rot in U.S., okra not reaching Canada
Satara/Singapore/London | Reuters — In the fertile Satara district in western India, farmers are putting their cattle on an unorthodox diet: Some feed iceberg lettuce to buffalo. Others feed strawberries to cows. It’s not a treat. They can either feed their crops to animals or let them spoil. And other farmers are doing just that

Pulse import plunge in India to ripple across Canada, Australia
Mumbai | Reuters — Pulse imports to India, the world’s biggest buyer, may fall to their lowest in nearly two decades after the government raised import taxes and restricted overseas purchases to bolster prices, impacting the plans of its global suppliers. The reduction in imports illustrates the government’s steps to raise the prices of pulses,

India doubles wheat import tax, imposes 50 per cent tax on peas
New Delhi | Reuters – India has doubled its import tax on wheat to 20 per cent, according to a government order made on Wednesday, as the world’s second biggest producer tries to rein in imports to support local prices. In the last two years India has been importing wheat after local production fell due

Pulse crop sales to India dry up over pest-control plan
Winnipeg/Mumbai | Reuters –– Canadian exporters are slowing sales of peas and lentils to India, threatening $1.1 billion in annual trade of the food staples, over risk that New Delhi may reject shipments under its tougher approach to pest control. India requires shippers to fumigate crops with methyl bromide, an insect-killing gas, in the country

Sweet paradox: India’s drought-stricken farmers plant thirstiest crop
Erratic prices for vegetables, oilseeds and pulses limit the incentive for farmers to plant them
Despite pleas from the government not to, Indian farmers like Santosh Wagh went right back to planting sugar cane as soon as the first nourishing monsoon rains brought water to his drought-stricken region of central India. For growers like Wagh, a 35-year-old from the Marathwada region in the west of India’s Maharashtra state, sugar cane
Scorching heat delays India’s rapeseed sowing
Mumbai / Reuters – Above-normal temperatures have delayed rapeseed sowing in India’s top producing region by more than a fortnight and restricted acreage expansion, even though prices are trading near record highs, industry officials said. The delays are helping support rapeseed prices and could force the world’s biggest edible oil importer to increase overseas purchases of

India’s drought a bonanza for Canadian pulse growers
Winnipeg/Mumbai | Reuters — Prices for Canadian pulses typically ease toward the end of the year but a recent dry spell in distant India, the world’s top producer and consumer, is driving them up. Back-to-back drought years for the first time in three decades has eroded India’s output of pulses and boosted imports. Global prices
India onion prices fuel food inflation
Onion prices in India hit a two-and-a-half-year high on Wednesday riding a supply squeeze due to last year’s drought in key growing areas, and traders expect prices to spiral up further in a month as demand remains strong due to Ramadan. Onion is a common ingredient in many Indian dishes. Soaring prices of the vegetable
With roots going back to 1925, each weekly issue of the Manitoba Co-operator contains production, marketing and policy news selected for relevance to crops and livestock producers in Manitoba.