Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
World Bank approves 4 India projects worth $800 millionedit
The Times of India – Online
The World Bank on Wednesday approved four India projects worth over $800 million to support development initiatives. The projects that have been approved are: Chhattisgarh Inclusive Rural and Accelerated Agriculture Growth Project (CHIRAAG); Nagaland: Enhancing Classroom Teaching and Resources Project; and Second Dam Improvement and Rehabilitation Project (DRIP-2).
“The projects support a range of development initiatives – strengthening India’s social protection architecture, promoting nutrition-supportive agriculture for tribal households in Chhattisgarh, enhancing quality education in Nagaland and improving the safety and performance of existing dams across various states in India,” the World Bank said in a release.Junaid Ahmad, Country Director, World Bank India said the four projects will support India’s efforts to build back ...
Rising Above Binary Choices In Indian Agricultureedit
Businessworld – Online
The debate in agriculture is fraught with binary choices. The prime time debate of the day, following the reactions to the Farm bill is – Mandis, or Markets? Equally critical questions, with a bearing on long term economic and environmental outcomes include – Should the rural youth persist with agriculture, or migrate? Should food production focus on higher yields, or on better nutritive value? Is it okay to trade off long term ecological sustainability to extract short term gains in productivity? These make for entertaining prime time television debates but in almost every pair of seemingly exclusive options, the answers lie in mitigating the tradeoffs and expanding the total opportunity to achieve sustainable development.
MAKING MARKETS AND ...
India Inc Extends Support To Agri Laws, Says New Reforms Will Improve Market Access, Increase Farmers’ Incomeedit
ABPLive – Online
Even as farmers are protesting against the new farm laws, the leaders of India Inc. believes that the recent reforms are part of a more extensive 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. Industry body CII believes the Agriculture Marketing reforms indeed herald a new era for agriculture and have taken care of many long-standing reform agendas.
“Given the need of the hour, the progressive agri marketing reforms aimed towards ‘Moving to One Nation, One Market’ are a significant step that will enable better access to markets, catalyze the creation of primary ...
Need To Deregulate Indian Agricultureedit
Businessworld – Online
Indian agriculture suffers from several fundamental shortcomings. First, the extreme level of fragmentation of holdings is debilitating. The second is the inability to scientifically estimate economic and social value of inputs and the inability to calibrate choice of crops and pricing of produce. The third is the excessive usage of nitrogenous fertilizers. The fourth is the lack of mechanization and technology. The fourth is the poor agricultural infrastructure in terms of storage, warehousing, cold-chains etc. The fifth is the ineffective marketing framework and lack of facility available to farmers to trade their produce freely. The sixth is the lack of dissemination about best practices and the lack of effective risk-management. Lastly, and most importantly is the inability ...
Indian agriculture — 6 tough realities, 5 dangerous myths and some solutionsedit
The Print – Online
The farmers protest at the national capital borders demanding a repeal of three new farm laws is now in its third week. But any resolution to the deadlock between the farmers and the Narendra Modi government is still not in sight.
As tension continues to persist, ThePrint’s editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta noted the six tough realities of farming and its economics in India, and the five dangerous myths surrounding it, in episode 640 of Cut The Clutter.
According to Gupta, these realities are: the farmer is always right; agricultural GDP is about one-fourth its impact on politics; farming is a low-yield business (about 60 per cent of Indian families depend on farming, about 45 per cent ...
Dairy Farming
At a time of acute farmer distress, Karnataka’s bovine slaughter bill will make lives even worseedit
Scroll.in – Online
On December 9, the Karnataka state assembly passed the Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Bill (2020). Given the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s focus on cow protection as part of its politics of Hindu nationalism, this move is not surprising.
However, even compared to similar acts passed by other BJP states, the Karnataka version is especially harsh. Not only does it ban the slaughter of all cows, bulls, bullocks and calves, it also outlaws the slaughter of buffaloes below the age of 13. Smuggling and transporting animals for slaughter is also an offense.
The bill prescribes punishments of between three to seven years – which is more than the punishment prescribed in Indian law for causing the death ...
Technology in Agriculture
Agritech start-up, Arya Collateral bags $21M funding in Series B round led by Quona Capitaledit
Techstory – Online
Agricultural technology start-up, Arya Collateral is one of India’s first Collateral management companies that aims to deliver quality warehousing solutions as a post farming process. The start-up has recently announced to raise USD 21 million in its latest Series B funding round led by Venture Capital firm, Quona Capital.
Arya Collateral Warehousing Services Private Ltd. mainly focuses on the post-harvest phase of farming i.e., storage, warehousing, warehouse receipt financing services, rural storage discovery, market linkages and collateral management.
The funding round also witnessed participation from existing investors including Bangalore-based LGT Lightstone’s Aspada and Mumbai-based Venture Capital firm, Omnivore.
Assam: New app to boost farmers’ productivityedit
The Time of India – Online
AgSpert — an agri-tech start-up co-founded by students of Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati (IIT-G) and the alumni of NIT Silchar and Dibrugarh University — has developed AgSpeak, a multi-lingual smartphone application for farmers.
Developed with the goal of optimising the in-farm productivity through artificial intelligence (AI), the application will help farmers making decisions and managing farm activities by the click of a single button on their smartphone or computer, IIT-G said in a statement on Tuesday. Driven by hyper local crop data from satellite and smart IoT devices, AgSpeak considers up to 20 local crop parameters, which are key indicators of their health such as temperature, rainfall, sunlight hours, soil health status, among ...
Stubble Burning
फसल कटनी के बाद पराली नहीं जलाने को करें जागरूक: संयुक्त निदेशकedit
Dainik Jagran – Online
गया फसल कटनी के बाद किसान खेतों में पराली नहीं जलाएं। इससे मिट्टी के सूक्ष्म पोषक तत्वों को नुकसान पहुंचता है। खेती की उपज भी प्रभावित होती है। लिहाजा कृषि विभाग से जुड़े सभी कर्मी अपने-अपने क्षेत्रों में किसानों को जागरूक करें।
After harvesting, farmers should not burn straw in the fields. This causes damage to soil micronutrients. The yield of farming is also affected. Therefore, all the workers associated with the Agriculture Department should make the farmers aware in their respective fields.
सरकार के आदेश नाकाफी, पराली जलाने से बाज नहीं आ रहे किसानedit
Dainik Jagran – Online
सरकार द्वारा खेतों में पराली जलाने पर प्रतिबंध लगाया गया है। इसके लिए संबंधित पदाधिकारी व अखबारों के माध्यम से किसानों को जागरूक भी किया जा रहा है। परंतु प्रखंड मुख्यालय क्षेत्र के कई गांव के किसान सैकड़ों बीघा खेतों में फसल के अवशेष पराली को जलाकर सरकार के आदेश को ठेंगा दिखा रहे हैं। खेतों में पराली जलाने से जहां वायु प्रदूषण बढ़ रहा है। वहीं भूमि की उर्वरक क्षमता कम हो रही है। खेतों की उर्वरा क्षमता कम न हो इसको ले सरकार के द्वारा फरमान जारी करते हुए पराली जलाने पर रोक लगाई गई। पदाधिकारी के द्वारा सख्त कदम उठाए गए। कृषि विभाग के कर्मियों को जिम्मेवारी दी गई। पराली जलाने वालों को ...