Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
Harish reiterates govt commitment to farmersedit
Irrigation and Marketing Minister T Harish Rao informed that giving top priority to agriculture, the State government has purchased 12 lakh quintals of paddy from farmers through 95 Procuring Centres by paying Rs 600 crore to them.
Odisha presents Rs 1.06-Lakh crore budget; agriculture gets boostedit
The Odisha government on Monday presented the 2017-18 annual budget amounting Rs 1.06 lakh crore with at least 3 new schemes with mukhyamantri in the nomenclature. The state raised its allocation for agriculture by 100 per cent to Rs 14,930 crore. Presenting the Special Agriculture Budget in the House, finance minister Pradip Amat proposed Rs 100 crore as revolving fund to provide fertilisers to farmers, while Rs 100 crore has been allocated for supply of quality seeds to the farmers in the state. The state finance minister also said that farmers will get loans at 1 per cent interest rate up to Rs 50,000 crop loan.
Kerala growth up despite agriculture, tourism slowdownedit
The overhaul in the way the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) is calculated has helped Kerala record a higher growth of 8.10 per cent in 2015-16, despite the slowdown in agri and tourism sectors. As per the data available with ‘Express’ from the Directorate of Economics & Statistics (DE&S), the agri sector reported a negative growth of 2.95 per cent in 2015-16, worse than the previous year (-1.10 per cent). Crops sector as a whole showed a negative growth of 6.80 per cent, down from -3.86 per cent in 2014-15.
For climate-smart farmingedit
Reports of a residual El Nino effect from last year impacting the subcontinent in the latter half of 2017 should be cause for concern for farm economy managers. What the southern states, particularly Karnataka and Kerala, already in the midst of a prolonged spell of dry weather, can scarcely afford is another indifferent crop year. The Met Department, ICAR and agriculture universities should work towards a more precise, micro-level understanding of rainfall, temperature, crop choice and inputs, particularly in rainfed areas.
Farmers raise loan waiver chorusedit
The Shetkari Sanghatna wants the state government to waive off loans to farmers across Maharashtra. The demands come ahead of the two-day meeting of the state working committee of the association, founded by farmers’ leader late Sharad Joshi, from March 1 here. The farmers have incurred losses due to crash in prices of onions and other crops and vegetables. The association said that under such circumstances, they are unable to repay loan and manage their homes. The association will decide its further course of action during the two-day meeting.
Agricultural credit: Tamil Nadu, Punjab in preferred states’ list, even as poor farmers in Odisha, Bihar still deprivededit
Despite the substantial increase in agricultural credit in the past few years, a few states such as Tamil Nadu, Punjab and (pre-division) Andhra Pradesh continue to corner a large part of it, while most poor farmers in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar are still deprived of credit for purchase of basic farming inputs. This scenario has undermined the efficacy of the stepped-up farm credit in boosting agricultural productivity.