Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
Integrated Farming System for rural prosperityedit
State Times – Online
In India small and marginal farmers are considered as the key for the food and nutritional security. Their capacity building is essential for the rural prosperity. These farmers have low income, less storage facilities, lack of farm mechanisation and less market accessibility. They do less re-investment on the farm activities. These farmers are greatly influenced by the weather and natural calamities such as floods, droughts, land sliding etc. There is dire need to enhance the income of these farmers by introducing the new interventions and by the adoption of scientific dairy-farming, vegetables growing, mushroom cultivation, beekeeping, fisheries etc. An Integrated Farming System (IFS) approach mixes two or more components judiciously using cardinal principles of minimum competition ...
A Research-Based Career In Nano-Biotechnology In Agriculture Will Open New Prospectsedit
Youth Ki Awaaz – Online
Agriculture in India is the most crucial sector for ensuring food and national security as well as sustainable development. And, India has achieved remarkable growth owing to the formalization of education and research in the field of agriculture. However, to meet the emerging needs, more professionals will be required in the offing along with quality and research-driven education institutions in the field.
Around 15,000 graduates, 11,000 masters and 2500 PhD professionals in agriculture are added every year, according to a report. There is, however, a scarcity of nearly 30,000 professionals in the field as against 65,000 required.
Technology in Agriculture
Ex-IITians start AI revolution in Indian farmingedit
The Times of India – Online
If technology started Green Revolution in the mid-1960s to multiply key crops’ production, livestock, and horticulture output, information technology (IT) and artificial intelligence (AI) drive the new millennium’s agriculture and its self-made entrepreneurs like ex-IITians Taranjeet Singh Bhamra and Rajamanohar Somasundaram. Their AI-powered platforms help the growers, buyers, and end-users of farm produce. Bhamra went to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Kharagpur, while Somasundaram graduated from Kanpur. In 2016, Bhamra founded AgNext Technologies, an award-winning venture-capital backed company that envisions a new world of food value chain based on data science that can transform the way we grow, procure, trade, store, and consume food, benefiting all stakeholders in agribusiness. The Mohali-based enterprise ...
Govt. Policies
Centre invites protesting farm unions of Punjab for talks on Fridayedit
Tribune – Online
A letter from Secretary, Agriculture, Sudhanshu Panday, inviting the union leaders for talks with Agriculture Minister Narinder Singh Tomar and Railways Minister Piyush Goyal has been sent to the farmer unions on Wednesday evening.
Though the date of the meeting was announced by the state BJP leaders yesterday, the farmer unions had not received a formal invite.
“We will be holding a meeting of all 30 unions, who have joined hands for the protest, at Chandigarh on Thursday. The entire strategy for the meeting with the Centre will be jointly decided, before we go to Delhi,” said Balbir Singh Rajewal, president of BKU Rajewal.
Centre Invites Punjab Farmers Bodies for Talks with Agriculture and Railway Minister on Nov 13edit
News18 – Online
The Centre has invited Punjab farmer bodies protesting against its farm laws for talks on November 13 in Delhi. An invite from the Secretary, Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, has been sent to farmers’ organisations for talks with Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal.
Bharatiya Kisan Union (Rajewal) president Balbir Singh Rajewal said farmers’ organisations have received an invitation. A farmer leader said they have called a meeting of representatives of unions on November 12 to discuss the strategy.
Farmer rage is growing against Modi’s agricultural policy in Indiaedit
TRT World – Online
Chamkore Singh, a 70-year-old farmer from the north Indian state of Punjab, takes his shoes off and hurls them at a life-size cardboard cutout of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, placed outside a tent full of protesters who had gathered on October 23 in Malerkotla town.
“This is for my son Sukhpal,” Singh screams emotionally, as the shoe leaves his hand, hitting the cardboard image.
This act of defiance was applauded by the protesters who are putting up a tough fight against the new farming laws enacted by the Hindu nationalist government of India led by Prime Minister Modi.
Stubble Burning
CM Adityanath Asks Police Officials To Not Harass Farmers Over Stubble Burningedit
Today in Bermuda – Online
On Friday, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath has asked the officials to make it certain that they do not harass the farmers when they take action against stubble burning.
The Uttar Pradesh administration has taken strict actions against farmers who have resorted to stubble burning. The Police have filed FIR’s against hundreds of farmers in lots of districts and arrested many of them too. Reports claim clashes between the police administration officials and farmers in several areas. The farmers have also alerted that they would launch a protest against the police action.
‘What other option do we have?’: Why stubble fires would not dieedit
Down To Earth – Online
Come November, and the farms are on fire. It is a story that repeats year after year. But 2020 has been worse: The number of farm fires due to burning of paddy straw in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh has overtaken the counts of the last two years. And Delhi-NCR is choking on toxic air.
This is despite multiple moves, including a new commission to check pollution sources as well as stubble burning, formed by the Union government recently.
The Punjab government, too, had said it would provide 23,000 on-site crop residue management machines to farmers with a subsidy of 50 per cent to individual farmers and 80 per cent for cooperative societies ...
Farmers In Amritsar Continue To Burn Stubble As Delhi Records ‘severe’ AQI Leveledit
Republicworld – Online
Despite the ‘severe’ Air Quality Index (AQI) in the Delhi-NCR region, farmers from the neighbouring state of Punjab continued to burn stubble on their fields. As of Tuesday, November, 10, the AQI of the national capital remained above 400, hitting the emergency levels. Farmers in Amritsar have claimed that the government has still not offered an affordable alternative to the stubble burning problem which is severely rising pollution levels in Delhi for several weeks. The farmers further revealed that they are forced to burn their stubble as they cannot afford the big machinery the government has provided as alternatives.
Singh further recommended that the government should set up an industry to produce something from the straw. “This way pollution can be reduced. Stubble burning, ...
UP district finds a novel idea to check stubble burningedit
Daijiworld – Online
The Unnao district administration has found a new way to put a check on stubble burning in the area.
A new scheme has been launched under which farmers will be given one trolley of bio-fertilizer in exchange for two trolleys of stubble.
According to District Magistrate Ravindra Kumar, farmers can go to any of the 135 cow shelters in the district and exchange the stubble for fertilizer.
He said that the scheme would not only check stubble burning but would also encourage use of bio fertilizers.
As Delhi records ‘severe’ AQI, farmers in Amritsar continue to burn stubbleedit
Business Standard – Online
Farmers in Amritsar continued to burn stubble on their fields even as neighbouring Delhi choked with Air Quality Index (AQI) remaining well over 400, in the “severe” category, on Tuesday.
Despite several weeks of rising pollution levels, farmers claim that the government has still not offered an affordable alternative to the problem.
“We are compelled to burn the stubble as we don’t have any other alternative. We cannot afford the big machinery that the government offers as alternatives. The government should find a more concrete solution for this problem,” said Jerman Singh, a farmer from Amritsar’s Wadala village.
He suggested that the government should also set up an industry to produce something from the straw. “This ...
Stubble burning cases race past 66k in Punjabedit
The Times of India – Online
With 3,508 crop residue-burning events on Tuesday, the count of stubble burning cases so far this year reached 66,352 in Punjab. This is much more than the burning cases since 2017. Bathinda recorded the maximum 555 burning events, followed by 501 in Moga, 438 in Sangrur, 331 in Muktsar, 323 in Barnala, 298 in Mansa, 272 in Fazilka, 195 in Faridkot, 187 in Ludhiana, 171 in Ferozepur, and 127 in Patiala. Five districts did not record any burning case, whereas SBS Nagar recorded two, Rupnagar four and Kapurthala nine. In 2019, Punjab had recorded 49,628 stubble burning cases till November 9. In the corresponding period in 2018 and 2017, the state recorded 40,788 ...