Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
After Sikkim, organic farming to get a push in other Hill Statesedit
Parshottam Rupala, the Union Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, informed that the government is increasingly focusing on organic farming to boost production of nutritionally rich agri produce. As a part of the government’s push, States adjoining the Himalayan range will be encouraged to go all organic, Rupala said, while addressing the Assocham summit on Food Processing, Agriculture and Dairy industry held in Ahmedabad on Thursday.
Agri Min seeks evaluation of soil health card schemeedit
The National Productivity Council and the National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management will evaluate the governments soil health card scheme that seeks to cover 12 crore farmers across the country. Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh had asked the department to engage third parties for evaluating the progress made under this scheme that was launched in 2015.
Illegal BT gets Approvaledit
Telangana state agriculture department going to write letter to central government on private seed companies which are selling illegally BT – 3 type new breed seeds to farmers. America based Monsanto company is trying to produce this breed in India from last few years. No permission granted so far on this issue.
Scientists develop herbicide-resistant riceedit
The researchers expect HTM-N22 to have an easy process of registration for widespread commercialization since development of this mutant did not require genetic engineering of the rice crop. They believe most significant use of the herbicide-tolerant mutant will be in its usage in publicly-funded rice breeding programmes in India and elsewhere without infringing intellectual property. The institutions that participated in TNAU-led project were Indian Agricultural Research Institute, National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology, Punjab Agricultural University, Indian Institute of Rice Research, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru; National Rice Research Institute, Cuttack; and National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi.
After scraping Monsanto deal, Deere agrees to buy precision farming startup Blue River for $305Medit
Tech Gig Tech Crunch Green Ecosystem Taggit
Five months after abandoning its proposed purchase of Monsanto’s precision planting subsidiary due to anti-trust concerns, agricultural equipment giant Deere and Company announced that it will spend $305 million to acquire ag-tech startup Blue River Technology. Founded in 2011 and based in Sunnyvale, Blue River develops machine learning technology for precision farming and counts Monsanto’s venture capital arm, Monsanto Growth Ventures, among its investors.
Swadeshi Jagran Manch seeks dumping duty on more Chinese productsedit
Besides working on GDP growth, the NITI Aayog was expected to focus on challenges like poverty, unemployment and inequality. Instead its attention was mainly on interests of the big corporates and MNCs. This was clear in the permission given to GM crops and dismantling of price control mechanism for in pharma,” he said.
Can biotechnology help feed the world’s hungriest region—Asia and the Pacific?edit
As an economist by profession, understanding the complex world of agricultural sciences involves a learning curve. When we talk about employing biotechnologies in agricultural production and sustainable food systems for better nutrition it’s easy to get lost in the jargon. You’ve probably heard some of it—use of molecular markers, microbial food fermentation, reproductive technologies in livestock, DNA-based kits to diagnose diseases in farmed fish and of course genetic modification.