Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
Sonalika Tractors reports 63 pc jump in total sales at 13,085 units in Novedit
Outlook – Online
Sonalika Tractors on Tuesday reported a 63 per cent jump in total tractor sales at 13,085 units in November over the period year-ago, driven by domestic demand.
The company had sold 8,042 tractors in November 2019, according to a statement.
“The company recorded 63 per cent overall sales (including exports) in November with 13,085 tractors as compared to 8,042 tractors sold in the same month of last year,” Sonalika Tractors.
Dairy, MSP and FCI: Myths and realitiesedit
The Hindu Business Line – Online
Comparing the cereal economy with dairy sector is illogical. Despite their faults, MSP regime and FCI are relevant
There has been a considerable amount of debate and discussion on the new the farm legislation, which has raised concerns over the relevance of the Minimum
(Click link for full article)
Animal farming to blame for antibiotic Apocalypseedit
The Pioneer – Online
With a huge unregulated livestock sector, India’s antibiotic use in animals is estimated to increase by 82 per cent by 2030
In his 1945 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Alexander Fleming, the developer of Penicillin, had warned, “The time may come when Penicillin (would) be bought by anyone in the shops. There is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug, make them resistant.”
Before we started using antibiotics in the 1940s, a lot of things had the possibility of turning fatal: Right from giving birth, to getting a small scratch, from undergoing a surgery to sexually transmitted infections. Antibiotics helped us stop infections ...
Technology in Agriculture
Why Agri-Fintech Startups Have Failed To Cash In On Rural Finance Needsedit
Inc42. – Online
What is challenging India’s small and marginal farmers, once considered the economic backbone of the country? As most people already know, the top issue impacting both farmers and agriculture is the lack of timely and adequate finance. Be it drought, flood or pest proliferation, a bad harvest would often force small-scale farmers to seek quick, small loans, but the interest rate could be as high as 10% per week. The reason: Financial inclusion rates have always been low in the farming sector, and farmers are often left out of the formal credit system.
While banks mostly provide collateral loans at 8-12% interest per annum, some non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) may provide non-collateral loans, but the annual ...
First Global Centre of Excellence (GCE) in Agritech to be set upedit
United News of India – Online
IIT Ropar would be the first Global Centre of Excellence (GCE) to be set up under the India Innovation Network initiative, announced the IIT Alumni Council on Tuesday. The core areas of focus of the center ill be Agritech and Water, with multi-disciplinary support from areas like artificial imaging, computer vision, IOT sensors, chemical engineering, nuclear physics etc.
IIT Ropar recently got Rs 110 crore worth prestigious project for agriculture and water from department of Science and Technology, Government of India. Being located in an agrarian state, it has been one of the mandates of IIT Ropar to take up research aimed at addressing Water-Agriculture related issues.
The Global Centre of Excellence (GCE) are ...
Labour shortages boost agritech marketedit
Farmers Guardian – Online
Dutch bank ABN Amro estimated the global revenue for agritech products such as robot harvesters, crop monitoring drones and software to analyse on farm data at €6.2 billion.
ABN forecast the market would double in the next five years, driven by labour shortages and requirements to comply with tightening environmental rules alongside feeding a growing population.
Covid-19 has highlighted the agricultural sector’s challenge to find labour all around the world, as migrant workers returned to their home countries affecting many crops.
Agritech Startup Humus Gets Funding From Venture Catalysts, 9Unicorns And We Founder’s Circledit
Entrepreneur India – Online
Venture Catalysts, 9Unicorns Accelerator Fund and We Founder’s Circle (WFC) have recently led an undisclosed investment in Humus, an agritech startup solving the complex supply chain issues in the Indian agricultural sector.
Founded in 2019 by Manjunatha T.N. and Shilpa Gopalaiah, the platform aims to disrupt the Indian agriculture supply chain industry by addressing the pain points involving logistics of fresh produce through technology.
Stubble Burning
Field trials of Pusa’s stubble solution show mixed resultsedit
Hindustan Times. – Online
Deepak Yadav, a farmer in Jhuljhuli village of south-west Delhi’s Najafgarh, picks up and displays the stubble of a late variety of Basmati strewn on his two-acre farm. It’s in the same form it was in more than a month ago when district officials sprayed the Pusa bio-decomposer on the farm, they had told him the post-harvest stubble would turn into manure in 15 to 20 days.
For some reason, the bio-decomposer doesn’t quite seem to be effective on the post-harvest stubble of the fine-grained rice.
“We had got the bio-decomposer sprayed on our field on October 23 and it has been a month and the stubble has not shown any sign of melting,” said ...
Earn, Don’t Burn! Know How Farmers are Earning Lakhs by Selling Crop Residuesedit
Krishi Jagran – Online
If you have the courage to do something of your own, then it is not very difficult to pursue it and earn much more without depending on it. Virender Yadav of Haryana has done something similar. He has set a precedent which is giving handsome amount of earning along with good profits. Often people move to other cities or abroad in search of job or livelihood. But Virendra Yadav, who lives in Faraz Majra village of Kaithal district of Haryana is coming back from abroad and earning millions of rupees. Let’s know about the success story of this incredible man who is an inspiration and example to all farmers who have turned the problem of stubble ...
Punjab: As stubble fires flare from 40% to 68% in 4 years, experts point to benefits of ex- situ managementedit
The Indian Express – Online
Years of work by various government agencies and distribution of nearly 74,000 stubble management machines seem to have come to naught as farm fires in Punjab this year have increased from 40 per cent to 68 per cent in the last four years (since 2017). With their efforts primarily focused on in-situ management (see box), experts believe it’s now time for the government to expand ex-situ management in a bigger way.
Several of the state government’s departments including agriculture, the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) and the district authorities could not check stubble burning under the Centre-supported scheme for in-situ management of crop residue (to incorporate stubble in soil with the help of stubble management ...
Organic composting offers hope to deal with stubble burningedit
Eco-Business – Online
Indian scientists have developed an organic composting solution that farmers can use as an alternative to burning crop stubble. Capsules containing various fungi were developed by microbiologists at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) at Pusa in New Delhi.
The city bears the brunt of polluting smoke wafting from across the fields of neighbouring Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh states as farmers burn rice stubble to prepare for new planting in October and November each year. This, combined with colder temperatures, humidity and lack of wind leads to pollution getting trapped during the autumn.