Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
KisanKraft: Revolutionizing Indian Agricultureedit
Agriculture plays an essential role in reshaping India’s economy as over 58 per cent of the rural households depend on agriculture as their sole means of livelihood. Agriculture, along with fisheries and forestry, is one of the largest contributors to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with the share of agriculture and allied sectors expected to be 17.3 per cent of the Gross Value Added (GVA) during 2016-17. While the market is fruitful for bigger entitites, there is a lack in congruency, when it comes to mechanization needs of small and marginal farmers. Here KisanKraft plays an important role in revolutionizing the industry.
Agri Ministry holds review meet on e-NAMedit
Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh while addressing the review meet on e-NAM expressed satisfaction on the progress made by the states like UP and M-P. He also asked the officials to run awareness campaign among farmers and sensitize both farmers and traders about the benefits of online bidding. The e-NAM initiative aims at achieving a unified single market for agriculture by incentivizing online trading and participation of the farmers. Notably, under the e-NAM initiative some states like Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand have reduced user or market fee for online traders. Rajasthan has instituted Upahar award to encourage for the same.
TNAU ready to support entrepreneurs willing to sell its productsedit
Talking to The Covai Post, Mohan said many useful products of the university are unable to reach the public due to lack of awareness among the public. “I hold patent rights for two of the eight patented products of the university – TNAU Stack Probe Trap and TNAU Insect Egg Remover. The two products will be of great use to remove insects from stored grains. It will be very useful at shops and households that stock rice or pulses (upto 150 kg),” he said.
Scientists should remove gap between them and farmers: Singhedit
India The Echo of India Outlook India Today Business Standard
Agricultural researches will be of no uses if it is not applied in the farmer s field and scientists should remove the gap between them and the farmers, former Union Minister Prahlad Singh Patel said today. “A research paper is of no use if it is not applied in the farmers field. The ICAR scientist should remove the gap between them and the farmers and this could be achieved through awareness,” Patel said.
Tierra Agrotech Buys DuPont Pioneer’s India Cotton Seed Bizedit
US-based DuPont Pioneer has sold its cotton seed business in India to Hyderabad-based Tierra Agrotech, which had earlier this month bought US major Monsanto’s branded cotton seed business. Tierra Agrotech has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Xylem Seeds, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pioneer Overseas Corporation of DuPont Pioneer, Tierra’s managing director Suresh Atluri said on Thursday.
‘R&D investments into seed sector under threat’edit
The aggregate research investments by all FSII members is put at Rs 550 crore per annum. This is about 75 per cent of the total research spend of the seed industry in the country. The industry now is in a dilemma on where to invest in research because of the uncertainty over protection of IP. Take the example of GM mustard.
On GM crops, a failure to heed scientific evidenceedit
One only needs to look at the enormous success of BT cotton, the only GM crop that is allowed to be cultivated in the country, to gauge the potential here. In fact, while BT cotton was developed by a foreign company, thus fuelling concerns about vested interests and corporate control among environmental activists, GM mustard has been developed at the publicly funded Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop Plants at the University of Delhi after 20 years of research.