Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
Wheat not procured, farmers protest in Mogaedit
Farmers staged a protest against the Union and state governments for “failing” to lift thousands of tonnes of wheat lying in the grain market at Bhodiwala village in the Dharamkot subdivision of Moga district.
They alleged the Food Corporation of India (FCI) was not purchasing wheat from them. The Bhodiwala village grain market has been allotted to the FCI for the purchase of foodgrain.
Sukhchain Singh, Kamaljit Singh and other protesting farmers said they were waiting for their turn to sell the grain for the past couple of days, but the procurement authorities were not willing to buy.
Andhra Pradesh gears up for early kharif seed distributionedit
Keeping in view the uncertainties and the peculiar challenge posed by the Covid-19 threat, the government of AP has decided to go for early distribution of kharif seeds in AP, to help the farming community in distress.
The main crop season for AP is kharif the government wants to ensure that there is no shortage of seed or any difficulties in making the supply, hence the decision to take up seed distribution, early. Sources in the agriculture department disclosed that the government was taking all measures to ensure that the farmers were ready to take on kharif activity as when required, for which the pre-requisite was early supply of seed to enable them to carry on with their kharif-field work.
How covid-19 is impacting the rural marketedit
A lockdown has been imposed in the entire country to prevent the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus. People have welcomed this decision as they understand that desperate times call for strict measures. The manufacturing for all product categories has been stopped, until further notice, apart from the ones listed under essential items.
Russia, World’s Largest Wheat Exporter, Suspends Grain Exports Until July 1edit
Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter, is suspending grain exports, including wheat, rye, barley and corn until July 1, the ministry of agriculture said Sunday.
In early April, the government introduced export quotas for certain grains until the end of June but these were “fully exhausted” by Sunday, the ministry said in a statement.
“After exporting all grain declared under the quota, the export of wheat, meslin, rye, barley and corn to non-member states of the Eurasian Economic Union will be suspended until July 1, 2020,” the statement said.
The Eurasian Economic Union groups Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.
Start-up comes to rescue of farmers during lockdownedit
Jogi Reddy, a Hyderabad-based farmer, was left with 30 quintals of papaya which he could not sell due to the national lockdown announced on March 24. He was worried that the fruits might get rotten as there were no retailers or transporters available to sell his produce. Reddy’s brother from Canada knew about a twitter page run by Ruchit Garg named Harvesting Farming Network (HFN) and he shared details about his brother’s farm on it.
Double whammy for farmers: After labour shortage due to lockdown, untimely rains cause severe damage to cropsedit
Struggling to cope with labour shortage during the harvest season amidst the nationwide lockdown in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak, untimely rain and hailstorm have now added to farmer woes in some districts of Uttar Pradesh as it has caused extensive damage to the crops.
Unseasonal rain and hailstorm that lashed the Balrampur district on Saturday evening has increased the worries of Bhanu Kumar. The farmer’s standing wheat crops in Rajneetpur village which couldn’t be harvested due to lack of labour amidst the nationwide lockdown has now been completely damaged due to the inclement weather conditions.
Unseasonal rains damage crops as farmers battle multiple setbacksedit
Heavy unseasonal rains have caused damage to standing crops in a setback to farmers bracing for the busy agricultural season amid the coronavirus disease pandemic and lockdown that have already reduced the availability of farm labour and transport of their produce in parts of India.
An exact estimate of the damage caused by the rain in six states – Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal — would be available only after surveys are conducted, government officials said, expressing concern that the damage could result in less-than-expected procurement of foodgrains.
Food Corporation of India had expected to procure 35 million tonnes of foodgrains from the rabi season harvest, compared to 34 million tonnes last ...
Lockdown 2.0: Brace up for runaway prices; only 6% of wheat in market, 30% onion, 41% potatoedit
Only 1.32 lakh tonnes of wheat was sold in the mandis across India during the first 21-day lockdown announced by the Modi government on March 27, says a quantitative analysis of agricultural crops that made it to various agricultural markets. This was only about 6 per cent of the total amount of wheat sold in the same 21-day period in 2019, and only 3.4 per cent of the total amount of wheat sold in the mandis in this period in 2017.
The first of its kind study, published by city based Society for Social and Economic Research (SSER) reveals that the situation was not better in the case of some other key Rabi crops also. In addition ...
Food grain distribution more than doubles since lockdownedit
Indian Railways has transported 5.2 million tonnes of foodgrains in the month since the country went under a lockdown on March 25 to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease, more than double the quantity the national transporter carried in the same time a year ago, as the Centre tried to avert the spectre of hunger by making sure every region had plentiful food stock.
With barely seven of India’s 2,067 large wholesale food markets functioning in the initial days of the lockdown, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and Indian Railways went into overdrive to ferry grain stocks from food-surplus states to deficient ones.
“The railways’ transportation of food stocks has played the single most important ...