Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
Make climate change central to farm reformsedit
The Tribune – Online
Punjab, the ‘poster boy’ of the Green Revolution, has been the leading food producer of the country for a long time. Taking advantage of the favourable agro-climatic conditions, the state was selected for introducing intensified wheat and rice cropping systems. This boosted grain production and helped India quickly ramp up foodgrain output to achieve self-sufficiency in the late 1960s and the 1970s.
The period was marked by technology dissemination, large-scale chemicalisation and mechanisation of farm operations. Over the years, over-exploitation of groundwater resources posed a challenge.
In recent decades, the problem of stubble burning has added to concerns around air pollution locally and in the region. Though Punjab remains a leading producer of food in the ...
CLAAS Mentions
Beating COVID-19, CLAAS registers 3.7% sales growth in 2020edit
Agriculture Post – Online
Beating the blues of COVID-19 pandemic and related shutdowns, CLAAS, one of the leading international manufacturers of agricultural machinery, increased its sales in the German financial year 2020 by 3.7 percent to 4.042 billion euros as compared to 3.898 billion euros in 2019. Pre-tax earnings rose to 158 million euros as against previous year’s 136 million euros; the free cash flow achieved a substantial turnaround into the profit zone with 308 million euros as against previous year’s 138 million euros.
“CLAAS managed to achieve growth in sales and to improve profitability despite the pandemic and shutdowns in production. In the process, our widespread international presence has paid off,” said Thomas Böck, Chairman of the CLAAS Group Executive ...
Technology in Agriculture
Hyderabad: Tech, reforms will help raise farmers’ incomeedit
The Hans India – Online
During his address, Dr Rangaiah V Setlem, CEO, Indigene Protein Foods Pvt Ltd, mentioned that India is progressing multifariously and set to become number one in every agricultural commodity production in the world. He opined that agriculture is the only sector that did not get much impacted in terms of modernisation, attracting investments and development of primary infrastructure. He said that the current bills that the Government of India passed must have envisaged farmers with more freedom to choose more relevant to current global practices. He mentioned that by passing of these bills, government must be intending for the progress of the farmers to a larger extent. Pradeep Palelli, CEO, THANOS Technologies Private Limited, said ...
Cisco agriculture challenge with prize purse of Rs 2 crore announcededit
Business Standard – Online
Networking giant Cisco on Friday said it has partnered with nonprofit organisation The/Nudge Centre for Social Innovation and the Indian government for an “agri challenge” with a prize purse of Rs 2 crore aimed at mobilising agri-tech startups to innovate solutions that have the potential to positively impact at least 10 million small farmers.
The “Cisco Agri Challenge” challenge will run in stages over twelve months. It will support participants in developing, testing, and scaling solutions that help alleviate the issues of low income and diminishing profitability farmers in India are facing.
Agritech startup: Fasal, a pioneer in precision farming launches Water Credit Initiativeedit
Krishi Jagran – Online
Precision farming agritech startup- Fasal has launched Fasal Water Credit to encourage its farmers to save water and money with sustainable farming practices. Fasal is the pioneer of precision farming and is an IoT based AI-powered intelligence platform for horticulture crops.
It captures real-time data on conditions from on-farm sensors to deliver farm-specific, crop-specific and crop-stage specific actionable recommendations to farmers.
Can Dhanuka Agritech resist market uncertainty?edit
Stockpedia – Online
Some stocks are better placed than others to withstand the economic turmoil caused by Covid-19 – but is Dhanuka Agritech (NSI:DHANUKA) one of them?
To understand why different shares respond to chaos in different ways, it pays to look at their strengths…
In bull markets, investors gravitate to speculative, unproven growth stocks as a means of achieving the best returns. But these stocks can collapse first in a crisis.
By contrast, high quality shares often get overlooked in bull markets. But it’s these stocks that are often better at keeping their momentum and recovering quickest from periods of volatility.
Govt. Policies
As farmer protests continue, here’s a comparison between India and China farming policiesedit
India Today – Online
The ongoing protests in New Delhi and the surrounding areas against the three farm bills passed by the Union government in September don’t seem to be ending anytime soon. Farmer unions and the Opposition parties have termed these laws as “anti-farmer”, saying that they benefit the corporates. The government, on the other hand, claims that these policy changes will enable farmers to sell their produce directly to consumers and buyers.
The ongoing debate on India’s farm policies invites comparison with China whose agricultural output, investment in research and development concerning farming practices and incentives to farmers are better.
India and China both have chosen a different economic path. China started off by working on its agriculture ...
Stubble Burning
Capt Amarinder inaugurates India’s Ist-paddy straw based briquetting plantedit
United News of India – Online
In a major initiative to cut down stubble burning and reduce environmental pollution, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Friday virtually inaugurated the country’s first-of-its-kind Paddy Straw based Briquetting Plant A11U in Patiala.
Calling it an overdue initiative, the Chief Minister said the new technology will not only help check environmental pollution
through gainful utilization of paddy straw in the state but will also enable farmers, especially small farmers, earn extra income from sale of paddy stubble. Confident that more such plants would come up in the future to solve Punjab’s stubble burning problem, he said the low calorific value of 3500 for briquettes (as compared with 7000 for coal) is amply balanced ...
Curbing stubble burning menace: Punjab gives nod to IOCL biogas plant; how it will benefit in checking pollutionedit
Financial Express – Online
In a bid to help manage paddy stubble, the Cabinet of Punjab gave in-principle approval to Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) on Thursday for setting up a compressed biogas (CBG) plant at Rakhra in Patiala, at the site of closed cooperative sugar mills. The CBG plant will be developed in collaboration with Sugarfed. According to an IE report, paddy straw will be used by the plant to produce biogas thereby checking the menace of the burning of paddy stubble. Also, the CBG plant, through organic manure production, will nurture soil fertility. The decision for the setting up of the CBG plant was taken at a virtual Cabinet meeting, which was chaired by Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh.
In ...
Tractor industry
Robotisation: implement makers ahead of tractor manufacturersedit
Future Farming – Online
The prospect of autonomous tractors performing field operations autonomously is still just a promise for the vast majority of farmers around the world. But, once the economics are right and legislators allow it, things may rapidly change. Easton Field needs post-harvest cultivations, but in the office, there’s a whole bunch of paperwork waiting to be completed – bills to pay, grants to claim, assurance documents to complete, cropping plans to prepare, and seed orders to place. And there’s a truck load of fertiliser coming that will need to be unloaded and a couple of grain lorries to fill as soon as they arrive in the yard.