Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
COMBINE HARVESTER MACHINES OPERATING WITHOUT SUPER STRAW MANAGEMENT SYSTEM TO BE IMPOUNDEDedit
In order to effectively curb the menace of stubble burning during ensuing paddy harvesting season, especially amid COVID-19 pandemic, the Punjab Pollution Control Board in consultation with Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare of the State has ordered that combine harvester machines functioning without Super Straw Management System (SMS) will be impounded.
Disclosing this today, Additional Chief Secretary Development Anirudh Tewari urged the combine harvester operators to get the Super SMS fitted on their machines. He informed that the state government is providing 50% subsidy on the total cost of getting the SMS fitted on the machines.
He further said that Agriculture Department has also extended the date to submit the applications for subsidy on SMS up ...
Kuttanad all geared up for paddy harvestedit
Amidst the pandemic and hardships caused by recent floods, Kuttanad is all geared up for paddy harvest.
According to Agriculture Department officials, harvest of the additional crop (second crop) will begin in the district in the first week of October. “The August floods had destroyed paddy in around 3,500 ha in the district. However, crop in around 5,300 ha survived the floods. We have made all arrangements for the harvest of the second crop,” Lata Mary George, Principal Agricultural Officer, said.
Ms. George said in view of the pandemic, paddy harvest would be conducted as per a special protocol. A committee involving agriculture officers and health workers would be constituted in all grama panchayats. It would prepare ...
PM-Kisan scam: Defrauding farmersedit
When the Tamil Nadu government machinery was busy grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic across the State, a WhatsApp message from a farmer alerted a top officer in the State Directorate of Agriculture to the fact that all was not well with the implementation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship welfare scheme for farmers, the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan), in the State.
The message, received on August 6, claimed that miscreants and middlemen had been stuffing the scheme’s beneficiary list with ‘ineligible farmers’ with the intent to siphon funds from scheme. Just prior to its receipt, the Directorate of Agriculture in Chennai itself had smelt a rat while carrying out a routine verification of the scheme. It ...
How farm reforms can transform India into an agricultural powerhouse by 2030edit
Agriculture accounts for only 15 per cent of India’s $2.9 trillion economy, growing annually at the sluggish pace of 1.5-2 per cent. The Narendra Modi government’s bold moves to fundamentally reform one of the most important sectors of the Indian economy seek to change this. The primary motive behind the three Farm Bills recently passed is to revamp the agriculture value chain and attract the necessary investments to build world-class farmgate to market infrastructure. These Bills promise to remove government-imposed barriers so that farmers gain access to national markets to sell their produce, realising increased incomes.
New agricultural paradigmedit
The over-hyped green revolution of the late 1960s introduced varieties of dwarf rice and wheat in northern India with a cocktail of chemical fertilisers and pesticides that sucked up groundwater and gradually made it unfit for drinking. The chemicals leached into the soil and water. State-sponsored propaganda about “miraculous yields” extended the phenomenon across the country, ruining soil fertility and the nutritious value of food crops; the impact on public health was noticed by the medical community but all voices were silenced. Today, Gurdaspur-to-Delhi trains are called “Cancer Express”, yet there has been no medical study of the harm caused by chemical agriculture to the health of humans, animals, soil and water resources.
Agritech trends: Use of data science in agricultureedit
Agriculture and allied sectors in India employ about 50% of India’s workforce. Yet, it contributes to less than a fifth of the GDP. An average farmer in India earns less than US$ 2000 per annum, compared to the United States of America, where the Food and Agriculture sector contributes ~US$ 1tn to the GDP and employs roughly 25 million people, directly and indirectly. The Food and Agriculture per capita GDP in the US is ~ US$ 40,000. Even with the largest area of land under agriculture in the world, agricultural yield per hectare is still low for major crops in India. The gap in productivity and efficiency in the Indian farm and agriculture sector is a glaring ...
Farm Bills: What corporatisation did to agrarian societies of the worldedit
Amid widespread protests and turmoil, Rajya Sabha gave its nod to the three contentious agriculture Bills that seek to replace ordinances enforced in June this year. The idea behind the three Bills is to expedite investment of infrastructure and technology in the agrarian sector and liberalise farm market by facilitating the involvement of corporates. However, the farming societies, especially in Punjab and Haryana and those at the opposing end of the spectrum, reiterate that the government attempted to supersede the minimum support price (MSP) mechanism and Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) that provided farmers with a fair share in collective bargaining on price and non-price issues (weighing, grading, measurement among others). The protesters also called for regulation of ...
Competition
CNH INDUSTRIAL INDIA EXPORTS 100 TRACTORS TO BANGLADESHedit
CNH Industrial India has emerged as the first company in India to export 100 agricultural tractors to Bangladesh in an inaugural run of a freight train from the Inland Container Depot (ICD) in Dadri, India. The 25-wagon freight train carrying the tractors was seen off by Mr. Vikas Kikan, Business Head, SAARC (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka).
Team CNH Industrial at the inaugural run of the freight train from the Inland Container Depot (ICD) in Dadri
Hailing this as a major achievement for Indian Railways and the entire country, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal made a statement stating that, for the first time in the history of Indian Railways, 100 tractors have been exported to ...
Stubble Burning
Punjab farmers resort to early stubble burning for sowing veggiesedit
Farmers in Punjab, particularly in the Majha region, have yet again started burning the paddy residue early this year even as the state government is making tall claims of stopping the farm fires.
They are doing so to clear their fields and make them ready for sowing vegetables. The agriculture department officials say potato and peas are sown considerably in many areas. The farmers there prefer to cultivate the Pusa basmati-1,509 and some other hybrid varieties of paddy that ripen fast and thus are harvested early.
Stubble burning: Farmers not using straw managing machines to face criminal cases, Rs50,000 to Rs1 lakh finesedit
Farmers using combine harvesters for paddy without a Super Straw Management System (SMS) will be slapped with a fine of Rs. 50,000 and face criminal proceedings, the district administration announced on Tuesday to check stubble burning and its resultant air pollution.
Dry heaps of residue are left behind after combine harvester machines cut the crops, which have to be cleared for the next sowing. Most farmers then use the cheapest way to dispose this by burning. SMS attachments chop the leftover stalks and spread the residue as mulch and plant seeds.