United News of India

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on Saturday said that there should be an effective mechanism on market intelligence for agriculture products and asked the officials to take immediate steps to keep the prices of vegetables under check. Speaking at a review meeting on Agriculture Mission here today, he said that a new mechanism should be evolved based on the inputs from Agriculture Committees and a long-term plan should be drafted for stabilising the prices. A Cell should be formed with experts for purchase agriculture produce and marketing and in the next meeting of the Mission the discussion will be on the agriculture yield, Minimun Support Price (MSP) and the situation in ...

The Sentinel

In the 60’s Barak Valley, then undivided Cachar, particularly its Sonai region, was known for rich agricultural products. In fact, this southern zone of Assam also attained the distinction of being a granary as people depended entirely on locally produced rice due to bumper harvest of paddy. It could be possible because of the visionary agriculture minister of the time Moinul Haque Choudhuy who introduced a multiple package programme to help the farmers in all possible way. Agriculturists were immensely benefitted by the package.

The Times of India

The state cabinet on Friday cleared the government’s proposal to pay Rs 3,000 immediate assistance to every family in 896 panchayats in 18 districts hit by drought-like conditions, cabinet secretariat department principal secretary Sanjay Kumar said. Like last year, a survey has begun to identify farmers who are eligible for the agriculture input subsidy (AIS) to be given on October 15, due to the failure of Kharif crop on account of rainfall deficit, he added.

The Times of India

Terming climate changes a major cause for concern for the agriculture and horticulture, scientists insisted on creating climate resilient crop varieties and technologies to maintain the agriculture production steady keeping pace with the population growth. On the necessity for mechanisation, Kumar reiterated that the mechanisation was the only option to tackle the labour shortage. “We are shortly going to send a team of scientists and technical staffers from agriculture engineering to Japan and Korea to pick up some small equipment which can be directly tested and put into use,” he said.

The Times of India

Damage of crops owing to pests and erratic weather can be thwarted in Bengal with the help of agriculture technology solutions that are being adopted by other states, according to Krishna Kumar, founder and CEO at CropIn Technology, an India-based global enterprise. The global enterprise has already been working in tandem with various seed and tea companies in Assam and other parts of North Bengal. Currently, they are assisting 2.1 million farmers growing 365 different crops across the globe. “Depending on our data collected world over, we are ready to share our agricultural expertise with Bengal,” added Kumar.

Business Standard  The Indian Express

An internal working group of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to review agricultural credit has said loan waivers should be avoided and the focus should instead be on improving the viability and sustainability of agriculture. There should also be a formal institution set up by the government, on the lines of the goods and services tax (GST) tribunal, which can suggest ways to improve credit to the agriculture sector, the group’s report said.

 

Telangana Today

With good planning, farsighted policies, timely implementation and proper utilisation of resources come rewards. For Telangana, 2019 may well spell a turning point in the field of agriculture with the State poised to take a quantum leap in farm produce, particularly paddy and cotton. And this is not just for the ongoing kharif season. The trend is expected to extend to the next Yasangi season too. Paddy production is expected to smash through all previous records, with cultivation of paddy going up by 5 lakh acre from the normal area of 23.83 lakh acre, registering an increase of about 21 per cent in sowing.

Krishi Jagran

Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) together with the Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India had organized national conference of farmers on Promoting In-situ residue management at scale for clean & green environment at New Delhi. Around 1500 farmers from UP, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi participated in the conference. For management of paddy crop residues, machinery like Happy Seeder, Zero Till Drill, Cutter cum Spreader, Chopper, MB plough were provided free of cost in these villages. Both the progressive farmers had sown their wheat crop with Happy Seeder without burning any residue on their field. Besides, they had sown land of other farmers of neighboring villages & organized a campaign against paddy straw burning ...

Millennium Post

Sriram Rajagopalan & Mathangi Sriram discuss how the use of information and communication technology can boost sustainable farming in India. Agriculture has been recognised as the core of the Union budget for the year 2019-20. The government of India has planned to invest widely in agriculture infrastructure to provide assured income to small and marginal farmers. To this effect, it has established NITI Aayog, a national think tank to establish and conduct programmes and research on technologies of the future – namely, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) – to facilitate the economic development of our country.

Live Mint

A panel set up by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has suggested that the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) introduce a web portal on the lines of PSB Loans in 59 Minutes to allow quicker credit access for the agriculture sector. The Centre launched the portal in November 2018 to provide loans of up to ₹1 crore to MSMEs in less than an hour. According to latest figures, more than 50,706 proposals had received in-principle approvals and 27,893 proposals been sanctioned as of 31 March, 2019.

Zee Business

“Doubling farmers income in real terms is a difficult task but we may achieve it in nominal terms”, says Balram Singh Yadav, Managing Director, Godrej Agrovet Limited (GAVL). Agricultural surplus will turn up to be a reality and certain reasons like ongoing improvement in the package of practices, farmers, adoption of new technologies and irrigation practices, which is much better then what it used to be 10years ago may lead to this situation. Other reasons that will add on to the problem include the work on micro-irrigation, the launch of several irrigation projects in last 5years and a part of MNREGA budget, 38%, is spent on improving the irrigation infrastructure of the country.