Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
Alternatives to stubble burning? Research startsedit
Concerned over the impact of stubble burning on the lives of people and impact on the air quality of Delhi, two environment-friendly organisations and researchers have decided to conduct an exhaustive study in Punjab using behaviour change intervention.
₹189.21 crore sanctionedas debt relief for farmersedit
Making a statement under Rule 300 in the House, he said the government was committed to making agriculture a profitable venture and ensuring remunerative price for crops. “Of the ₹217 crore recommended by the Farmers’ Debt Relief Commission, an amount of ₹189.21 crore has been sanctioned for release.”
Supply chain management for farm produce in dist soonedit
The department of agriculture marketing and agri business has been working to implement supply chain management scheme at seven blocks in the district. The scheme will provide cold storage facilities for farmers to store perishable produce and also equipment for sorting and packing the produce, said officials of the agriculture marketing department. Work on constructing the building facilities for the project, which has been undertaken at a cost of Rs 38.33 crore, is almost complete. “We would buy equipment such as pre-cooling equipment, cold storage, grading and packing equipment within August,” said deputy director of agriculture marketing MR Palanisamy.
India must take action before it runs dryedit
Rudyard Kipling once described Shimla as a “centre of power and pleasure”. The power faded with the Raj. Now, pleasure is at a premium. Shimla is struggling with a water crisis that is an echo of Cape Town’s distress earlier this year. It has run out of municipal drinking water supply during peak tourist season. Citizens are being forced to queue up to collect water from tankers. Schools have been shut down for 10 days. This crisis is a reflection of a wider problem confronting India.
States crack down on sale of illegal GM cotton seedsedit
Last year, almost 35 lakh packets of genetically modified (GM) cotton seeds, incorporating unapproved ‘herbicide-tolerance’ or HT technology, were bought and planted by farmers across India. But this time round, state governments seem better prepared to curb this illegal cultivation, even as sowing of cotton is over in northwest India and is about to commence in the main western, central and southern growing regions with the advance of the monsoon rains.
Chennai’s ‘Door 2 Door Organics’: still going freshedit
Three years ago, Jitendra Prasad turned from his multiple tech-related startups towards agriculture. “I wanted to try my hand at it, but realised that the amount of chemicals that goes into it is phenomenal. I also realised that there were plenty of farmers trying to change this, but were all in need of support,” he recalls, explaining the motivation behind his startup, Door 2 Door Organics
India has not published data on farmer suicides for the last two yearsedit
The suicide of several farmers across India in the past month has put the spotlight on an issue that has plagued the country for several years. In May, at least six farmers committed suicide in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, reportedly for reasons that included debt to an unexpected fall in the prices of agricultural produce. As political parties attempt to use the tragedies to attack their rivals, the deaths are a reminder that the government of India is yet to publish data on farmer suicides after the figures for 2015. Government officials say that this is due to problems with the data sent in by a few states.
Swaminathan seeks action on farmers’ policyedit
A day after the Mandsaur incident anniversary, eminent agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan on Thursday called for immediate action on the proposed national policy for farmers, saying if “farming goes wrong nothing will go right in a country like ours”.