The Economic Times

Swiss agriculture company Syngenta plans to invest in technology in India and bring in its solutions for sustainable farming, the company’s chief executive J Erik Fyrwald told Rituraj Tiwari. Fyrwald, who was at Eluru, near Vijaywada, to inaugurate a facility for product testing and development, said India is a critical market for Syngenta and the company wants to increase India’s share in its global revenue to 5-10% from 3% now.

The Times of India

Punjab agriculture department has asked deputy commissioners to issue orders to impound combine harvesters used in paddy harvesting without super straw management systems (SMS). Farmers in the state are now confused whether they can use combines for harvesting paddy.  As per industry estimates, there are nearly 14,000 combine harvesters in Punjab but of these nearly 9,000 are self-propelled combines of over 100 horsepower which can withstand the load of the super straw management systems.

The Indian Express

At a time when government agriculture extension systems are crumbling, that gap is increasingly being filled by multinationals and corporates working directly with farmers, even while aggressively marketing their products. A good example would be Syngenta. The $ 13.5 billion Swiss agrochemical-cum-seed major, currently owned by the Chinese state-owned enterprise ChemChina, has designed crop-specific integrated solutions or “protocols” for paddy, maize/corn, cotton, chilli and tomato grown in India.

State Times

Agriculture is the backbone of Indian economy contributing about 14 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product. About 50 per cent of the Indian families are dependent on this sector for their livelihood. Indian agriculture is characterized by marginal and small farmers. The rising cost of inputs along with uncertainties of weather accompanied by the lack of marketing infrastructure have increased the cost of cultivation and decreased the net income of the farmers. As the government has set up the ambitious plan of doubling the farmers’ income by 2022, the policy makers, planners and the scientific community are working round the clock to ensure the target is achieved within the prescribed deadline. For this the government has ...

Live Mint

The dramatic recovery in the monsoon has come as a pleasant surprise. After a delay in the onset, the year recorded surplus rainfall by the end of the season. The recovery brought respite to stakeholders of companies dependent on the rural sector. This was reflected in the 9-10% rise in share prices of notable agricultural input providers such as Coromandel International Ltd and Rallis India Ltd, in the last two months.