Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
Covid-19: Impact on agriculture and foodedit
Covid-19 pandemic has hit hard. Nothing and nobody has remained unaffected. Failure of containing inter human transmission is a challenge. Agriculture and livestock have also suffered. Small and marginal farmers are the worst hit. Dairy, poultry and fishery losses seem irreparable.
Agriculture organizations and institutions are not able to compensate losses via fruitful advisories and online platforms. The Ebola Virus outbreak (2014-16) in Sierra Leone and the 1918 Spanish flu (most severe pandemics) serve historic lessons to tackle and consider hunger spike and malnutrition due to extended lockdowns.
Timely rains fuel farming activity in Wanaparthyedit
After a good night’s spell, farmers across the district have resumed their farming activity for the current Vaanakalam season. Most of the farmers have already prepared their lands and some of them have also started tilling their fields and women farm workers have begun sowing seeds.
Due to the onset of southwest monsoon at the very right time this year, almost the entire district except three mandals have received excess rainfall as compared to the last year this time. The district’s average rainfall as compared to last year has doubled, prompting farmers to focus on the new pattern of crop selection as suggested by the State government.
Tractor segment shows hopes for M&M; plans to exit loss-making businesses positiveedit
Mahindra & Mahindra’s (M&M) Rs 3,255 crore loss in the fourth quarter was largely on account of Rs 2,780 crore worth of write-downs in South Korea arm SsangYong, and the US electric two-wheeler business that it has exited.
While a 35 per cent revenue fall for the quarter was in line with Street expectations, a rise in market share of the tractor segment was a positive surprise. But analysts particularly appreciated the management’s plan to exit loss-making businesses, where losses mounted to nearly Rs 5,260 crore in FY20 from Rs 53 crore in FY17.
Milk turns sour as sales tank in season of glutedit
Households consumed more milk, cheese and yogurt during the lockdown, raising sales by up to25% in large dairies, such as Amul. But that has not been enough to offset the sharp decline in demand from commercial buyers, such as hotels, confectioners and restaurants, which account for nearly 20% of the organised dairy sector’s revenues.
This has triggered an inventory build-up crisis.
This year should have been a bright one. Good rains during winter made for cheaper fodder, the key input for cattle. As a result, the flush season (typically from October to March), which sees higher milk output production, stretched into April and May, leading to a two-month oversupply.
A limping hospitality sector, however, has cut sales ...
Telangana crosses one crore ton mark in paddy procurementedit
From procurement of just 24 lakh tons of paddy for both Vaanakalam and Yasangi in 2014-15, Telangana State has truly emerged as the rice bowl of the country this year with a record procurement of 1.12 crore tons of paddy. The massive transformation came as a result of the unflinching grit and determination of Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao to make the State the Rice Bowl of India.
Addressing the media here on Monday, Telangana State Civil Supplies Corporation Chairman Mareddy Srinivas Reddy said a record 47 lakh tons in Vaanakalam and 65 lakh tons in Yasangi were procured during 2019-20 taking the total to 1.12 tons. “Within six years of the formation of the State, a ...
A Vaidyanathan’s pioneering work on agriculture remains a reference pointedit
A Vaidyanathan, who passed away last week, belonged to the first generation of post-Independence economists, who formulated the public policies that addressed the formidable challenges the young republic faced, including facilitating economic growth and generating employment as well as the eradication of hunger, poverty, and other deprivations. He worked with stalwarts such as B S Minhas, V M Dandekar, K N Raj, C H Hanumantha Rao and many others to realise the dreams of independent India.
Anti-China sentiments can be used to expand our agricultural products to the world: Ajay Sahai, FIEOedit
Export and import account for 40% of India’s GDP, but the COVID-19 pandemic has particularly hit the Indian exporting community hard. To figure out where Indian export community stands, and when a meaningful recovery can take place. ET Digital spoke to Ajay Sahai, DG & CEO, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), Edited excerpts.
Bayer CropScience ties up with ITC’s agri businessedit
Bayer CropScience on Monday said it has partnered with agri business division of ITC to extend the reach of its crop protection products through ITC’s e-Choupal 4.0 platform. The partnership has commenced as a pilot project in Mysore in Karnataka and will gradually be expanded to other geographies across India, Bayer said in a statement.
With COVID-19 disrupting farming operations and on-farm advisory, this initiative will help farmers avail agri-inputs and digital advisory on a timely basis, it added.
Paddy up in the fieldsedit
On May 25, farmer leader Mandeep Nathwan led a rally of 3,000 tractor-borne farmers to the district headquarters in Fatehabad in Haryana. The farmers were protesting against the M.L. Khattar-led government’s diktat to cut down the area under paddy cultivation in the kharif season. The state’s farmers start transplantation of paddy from June 15. The protest rally, one of the biggest this year (and even as a lockdown was on), underscored the difficulty of weaning Punjab and Haryana’s farmers off paddy, a crop which has proved to be problematic for the ecology and economy of both states in recent years.
Farm sector braves pandemic shock, 4 stocks worth looking atedit
India’s agriculture sector stands out as a ray of hope as it has been relatively less affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
India is the largest exporter of rice globally and second-largest producer of wheat and rice after China. But the country’s legal framework, so far, discouraged private sector investment in warehousing. It put stock limits on any trader, processor or exporter. When farmers brought their produce to the market after the harvest, there was a glut and due to lack of storage facilities they did not get desired price.
Tractor demand coming back surprisingly fast, never seen this before: M&M’s Goenkaedit
Right now, demand for tractor is so strong that M&M can sell whatever it makes, Pawan Goenka, President, Mahindra & Mahindra said in an interview to CNBC-TV18.
“Tractors are coming back surprisingly fast and it was kind of expected because everything is going right for agri sector. We had a very good rabi crop, we had good pricing, we have a good reservoir level, we have a monsoon that is already setting all over India, the Kharif sowing is started, which is going very well, so everything is positive for tractor industry.
I haven’t seen anything so positive coming together in the month of May and June like the way it is this year. Therefore it was ...