Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
Agri policy soon, debt waiver alone won’t helpedit
The Punjab government would come up with an agriculture policy soon to ensure the welfare of farming community, said Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal. “We will not restrict waiving the debt of small and marginal farmers up to Rs 2 lakh, but will go beyond that to support farmers in many ways through a new agriculture policy. Only waiving debt is not the complete solution,” he told TOI.
Farmers want govt to run crop insurance scheme on its ownedit
A group of eight farmers from Irugur, under the aegis of the Tamil Nadu Farmers’ Association, on Monday took out a march to the district collectorate carrying a large plough and petitioned the collector, T N Hariharan, against the government’s policy of outsourcing crop insurances to private players and urged the state government to take up and run all crop insurances.
Punjab, Maharashtra warn cotton farmers on potential pest attacksedit
Despite plentiful rains in most parts of the country, monsoon has been patchy in some areas of Punjab and Maharashtra, prompting the two state governments to initiate steps to stop pest attacks. “We are a little concerned because of deficient rains in about six districts of the state and that’s why we have reached out to farmers to help fight pest attacks, if any,” Balwinder Singh Sidhu, Punjab’s agriculture commissioner, told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Govt to take a call on commercial roll-out of GM mustard crop in next 45 daysedit
Earlier, the apex court had asked the Centre to take a “considered” and “well-informed” view before taking a policy decision on the commercial release of Genetically Modified (GM) mustard crop. The government had said it was yet to take a policy decision on the commercial release of GM mustard crop and has been considering suggestions and objections on the issue.