Financial Express

Gujarat has taken the agriculture reform a step forward after Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh state governments allowed traders to buy the agricultural produce directly from the farmers’ fields or homes, instead of state-run mandis. Ending the monopoly of the government-run Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC), Chief Minister Vijay Rupani’s Gujarat state government has allowed private entities to set up their own market committees or sub-market yards to compete and offer the competitive prices of the agricultural produce to farmers. Apart from the farmers, even the traders were restricted to their own talukas and they had to pay a cess on any transaction that happened within the marketing yard of the APMC or outside it.

Tribune India

Further increasing its footprint, the Agriculture Ministry, on Monday, integrated 177 new mandis from 10 States, including Haryana (26) and Punjab (17), on the electronic National Agriculture Market taking the total number of mandis on the online portal, enabling farmers to sell without visiting regulated mandis, to 962.

Telangana Today

Nalgonda district has topped the State in paddy procurement this Yasangi, purchasing 5.75 lakh metric tons out of the 6.24 lakh metric tons of estimated crop production by the farmers in the district, which translates into 95 per cent of procurement of the crop.

With the conditions prevailing on account of coronavirus, the number of paddy procurement centres were also increased – 227 main paddy procurement centres and 422 sub-centres in the district. The remaining five per cent of procurement from the farmers would be completed within a week, according to officials.

New Indian Express

Even as procurement operation for rabi crops has started picking up, farmers of coastal districts have urged the State Government to allow them to sell their surplus kharif paddy under price support system.

Leading the cause of the farmers, the BJP and Naba Nirman Krushak Sangathan (NNKS) said a large number of farmers of coastal district could not sell their surplus paddy due to twin problems, mismanagement in issue of online token followed by nationwide lockdown imposed by the Centre.

Krishi Jagran

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Indian Express

Yadav Ghorui has rarely been this busy during harvest season. He is one of eight farm labourers called in to work on a one-bigha field in his Ajapur village in Burdwan, about 100 km from Kolkata.

“Last year, I got Rs 200 and 2 kg of rice every day that I worked; this year I am getting Rs 350 and 2 kg rice. Our group of eight is booked for the entire month. Work began a week ago and we have to harvest, bundle the paddy and dehusk the grains in two days. We work at night too,” said Ghorui, who lives with his wife and two children.

Business World

Adani Agri Logistics Ltd (AALL) said on Monday it facilitated the dispatch of 30,000 tonnes of food grains during the COVID-19 lockdown which amounts to feeding over 60 lakh citizens across different states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and West Bengal.

Seven trains owned and operated by the company for transportation of food grains from production centres in northern India to consumption centres played a critical role in facilitating this. Besides, in close coordination with the state government of Madhya Pradesh, AALL started the wheat procurement process of rabi crop with adequate safety and precautionary measures at its units from April 15.

The Hindu

COVID-19 has given a boost to e-NAM, the national digital platform for agricultural trade, with the number of connected mandis, or wholesale markets, up 65% since the lockdown, according to Agriculture Ministry data.