Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
Tamil Nadu bucks national trend in rice off-takeedit
Tamil Nadu has bucked the national trend when it comes to rice off-take from the Central pool.
Unlike many other States, which had doubled their drawal under various schemes of the Central government, including COVID-19 relief schemes, during April-June 2020 when compared to the corresponding period last year, Tamil Nadu had seen only a marginal increase in rice off-take. Tamil Nadu had lifted 13.08 lakh tonnes of rice during April-June 2019, and its offtake was only 13.5 lakh tonnes during the corresponding period this year, in spite of the State having availed itself of the special schemes announced by the Centre to mitigate the hardship faced by the people due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Andhra Pradesh, a ...
Agri bad loans shoot up for banks in FY20 as lending targets rise sharplyedit
Raising agriculture lending targets aggressively in recent years has led to overleveraging. Deterioration in credit culture on the back of farm loan waivers and diversion of funds (as pointed out by the RBI’s report on agriculture credit last September)is also a growing cause for worry.
The March quarter results of PSBs suggest that all of this has led to a sharp rise in delinquencies in agri loans. For instance, Central Bank of India has seen its agri NPA ratio spike to 14.7 per cent in FY20, from 9.7 per cent in FY19. Bank of Maharashtra’s agri NPA stood at nearly 26 per cent of its agri loans in FY20, up from 19.3 per cent in ...
Farm Reforms Take Off: Madhya Pradesh Farmers To Directly Sell Soybean To Processors This Yearedit
The Narendra Modi government’s agricultural reforms on the “One Country, One Market” has taken off in right earnest with soybean growers in Madhya Pradesh set to offload their produce with processors instead of taking it to the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) mandis.
This will mean that either the farmers will directly head to the millgates of the soybean processors or the latter will themselves buy the produce at the farmgate with the state government, too, permitting direct sale when the oilseed crop is harvested in September-October.
Farmers dump milk as seal down stops procurementedit
Frustrated over non-procurement of milk, dairy farmers of Kakolu village near Hesaraghatta threw hundreds of litres of the produce at a garbage dump.
eGov push: UP farmers to take e-route to discontinue premium on cropsedit
In yet another e-governance push, the Uttar Pradesh government has cleared a proposal to scrap the mandatory provision of physical presence of farmers in the banks for regulating payment of premium for the PM crop insurance scheme. The farmers will now instead be required to take e-route to seek discontinuation of premium payments for different crops.
The move is in line with the UP government’s efforts to avoid crowding of banks in districts due worsening Covid-19 pandemic situation in the state.
Cropping success: Why farmers don’t want to furnish land information to sell their products on online portalsedit
On July 7, 2019, the government of Haryana, following the example of many Indian states to digitally connect farmers, launched the “Meri Fasal- Mera Byora” initiative. In order to drive registration, the government promised benefits like crop damage compensation due to natural disaster, ensuring the availability of all government facilities, etc, via the service.