Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
Recent Agriculture reforms will improve market access and increase income opportunities for farmers: CIIedit
United News of India – Online
Recent Agriculture reforms will improve market access and increase income opportunities for farmers, according to CII. It will catalyse private investment and modernize supply chains. The recent reforms, are part of larger set of coordinated and comprehensive initiatives that have been taken by the government, focused on the input side, introducing risk mitigation measures, reducing post-harvest losses and augmenting market and income opportunities for farmers. CII believes the Agriculture Marketing reforms, certainly herald a new era for agriculture and have taken care of a lot of the long-standing reform agenda. The reforms will create the right enabling environment for market and investment led agricultural growth, and increased income generation opportunities for farmers. The reforms ...
Balers
Raw jute supply set to improve as balers asked to comply with stock limit orderedit
Outlook – Online
Jute mills can heave a sigh of relief with at least 12-15 lakh bales of the raw material likely to hit the market after the Calcutta High Court asked balers to abide by the sector regulator”s directive to stock up to a maximum of 500 quintals from the previous level of 1,500 quintals, industry sources said.
It will also help millers to help meet the target of gunny bags for food packaging which is facing a huge shortage of over 2.5 lakh bales, they said. The 500 quintals stock order was issued by the Jute Commissioner”s office in early November after the price of the commodity had soared to over Rs 6,000 per quintal as against the ...
Technology in Agriculture
Agritech startup: Clover Introduces Free Agronomy Service for their Greenhouse Farmersedit
Krishi Jagran – Online
The farmers of India are channelling into a growing consciousness of adopting scientific and clean farming techniques to grow the superior quality of fruit and vegetables. To strengthen the greenhouse farming techniques with the best advisory, the leading Agritech startup- Clover has been providing agronomy services for their greenhouse farmers intending to provide them with structural market access.
Over 60 greenhouse farmers with more than 70 acres of farms have benefitted with Clover’s agronomy service and have seen their yield increase up to 4 times. This service is a part of Clover’s business model aiming to improve the per acre yield from the farmer’s landholding, in turn improving farmer income while providing consistent access to high-quality fruit and vegetables to ...
Arya raises $21M to provide farmers in India finance and post-harvest servicesedit
Techcrunch – Online
Only about a third of the yields Indian farmers produce reaches the big markets. Those whose produce makes it there today are able to leverage post-harvest services. Everyone else is missing out.
A Noida-based startup is working with all the stakeholders — farmers, food processors, traders and financial institutions — to bridge this post-harvest services gap — and it just secured new funds to continue its journey.
Seven-year-old Arya said on Tuesday it has raised $21 million in its Series B financing round. The round was led by Quona Capital, a venture firm that focuses on fintech in emerging markets. Existing investors LGT Lightstone Aspada and Omnivore also participated in the round, while multiple unnamed lenders are providing additional ...
IIT Guwahati students’ start-up develops app for farmers to manage crops and farmsedit
India Today – Online
AgSpert, an agri-tech startup, co-founded by the students of IIT Guwahati, and alumni of NIT Silchar and Dibrugarh University, Assam, has developed AgSpeak, a multi-lingual smartphone application for farmers to smartly manage their farms and remotely monitor distress activities. Developed with a goal of optimising the in-farm productivity through Artificial Intelligence (AI), this application will help the farmers in making decisions and managing farm activities by the click of a single button on their smartphone or computer. AgSpeak was launched by Prof TG Sitharam, Director, IIT Guwahati on December 13, 2020 in Guwahati.
Quona Capital leads Series B funding in agri-tech firm Aryaedit
VCCCircle – Online
Arya Collateral Warehousing Services Pvt. Ltd, an agricultural-technology startup focussed on the post-harvest phase, has secured $21 million (Rs 154.67 crore at current exchange rates) in a Series B fundraising exercise.
The round in Noida-based Arya has been led by Quona Capital, with other participants including LGT Lightstone Aspada and Omnivore. Several lenders also participated by providing debt to the company, it said in a statement.
Stubble Burning
Nitish Kumar says, ‘Make farmers aware, do not punish on stubble burning’edit
News Track Live – Online
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar on Monday launched a ‘climate-friendly agriculture’ initiative across the state through video conferencing in the capital Patna. During the program, expressing serious concern over the increasing trend of stubble burning among the farmers of the state, he directed the top officials to take stock of the situation through aerial survey and take preventive measures without taking punitive action.
Addressing the program, CM Nitish emphasized the need to maintain constant contact with the farmers, listen to their problems, inform them of the pitfalls of burning straw and inform them about the benefits from the government on the alternative use of stubble. CM Nitish said that farmers should be told that the government ...