India to Support Removal of Food Export Curbs at Fund-Bank Meet.

India will support the removal of food export restrictions for humanitarian purposes during the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in Washington later this week.

The Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, will attend the two-day meeting on September 23-24.

According to the agenda note prepared for the meeting, India has welcomed the recommendations of the Development Working Group (DWG) of the Agriculture ministerial. One of these talks about extraordinary taxes for food purchased apart from removal of export restrictions for humanitarian purposes by the World Food Programme.

The issue of food export curbs comes at a time when India has lifted the ban on wheat and rice exports. However, the removal of ban will be applicable only to export of 20 lakh tonnes. Although some experts have criticised India's decision, saying that it could increase prices in the domestic market, the move may lead to a decline in international prices.

JODI INITIATIVE

Another key DWG recommendation is to launch an Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS), on the lines of JODI oil initiatives. Such a mechanism will provide accurate and timely information on crop production, stock trades and price in an effort to curb volatility.

JODI or Joint Oil Data Initiative is considered a reliable, freely accessible and comprehensive database of energy statistics. It offers a fair assessment of global oil consumption and production on a monthly basis.

The Fund-Bank meeting is also likely to take note of the recommendation that talks about a pilot programme for small, targeted, regional emergency food reserve. Another recommendation advocates agricultural geo monitoring through remote sensing to improve crop forecast that would feed into AMIS.

Source : imagesfood.com