Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
Women Contribute Hugely In Agriculture, But Are Still Overlooked As ‘Farmers’edit
Feminism India – Online
As I contemplate and pen this article in a warm and sheltered room in one of the metropolitan cities of India, there is a throng of women-men alike protesting over the most contentious farm Bills. The recent happenings have forced all of us to go back and freshen our memory in hindsight of whether we are really an agrarian state. At least, the government policy says so and the kind of false romanticisation that is shown towards the peasants (by different political groups) also supports the claim of us being a socialist and an agrarian state.
The economic survey released by government of India in the year 2017-18, talks descriptively about how women are ...
How Promising Is the Food Processing Industry for Indian Agriculture?edit
The Wire – Online
In the light of recent farmer protests, there have been apprehensions that corporates will develop a monopoly over agricultural markets, purchase large quantities of cereals at cheaper prices and sell processed products made from them at very high prices.
These apprehensions do not seem very plausible in the near future. Why? One important reason for this is the preference of Indians to consume fresh and home-cooked food rather than processed food made from rice and flour (wheat). Therefore, there is only a limited market for value-added products made from cereals, and big corporates may not have much interest in that.
What backs this argument is that while there is a well-established system of procurement of wheat ...
Decision to allow FDI in agro sector slammededit
The Himalyan – Online
Stakeholders have objected to the government’s decision to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in the agricultural sector of the country.
The Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies issued a notice in the Nepal gazette late Monday regarding allowing FDI in the agricultural sector of the country.
According to the notice, FDI has been allowed for livestock farming, fisheries, bee farming, vegetables and fruits farming, oil, pulses, dairy industry, among other agricultural sectors. The notice has said big industries will be allowed to open under the condition that they export 75 per cent of their production.
However, the stakeholders have expressed their dissatisfaction with the government’s move.
Technology in Agriculture
Startups Revolutionising Agricultureedit
Businessworld Disrupt – Online
AgriTech in India has become a thriving field with various new businesses working with innovations, for example, information investigation, AI and satellite imaging, among others, empowering ranchers to augment their yield. AgriTech is driving India’s next green transformation. A grip of tech hatcheries in India are additionally supporting development in farming, particularly in the rustic regions
CropIn Founder Krishna Kumar on why he decided to launch a data-driven agritech platformedit
YourStory – Online
For Krishna Kumar, launching agritech startup CropIn was more of an emotional decision rather than a logical one. While working for General Electric, he decided that he would build a solution to create a larger impact on society. After researching many sectors, Krishna realised that his interest lay in solving problems in the agriculture industry. He launched CropIn Technologies in 2010 along with a childhood friend, Kunal Prasad. Till date, CropIn claims to have digitised more than five million acres of farmland, worked with nearly 2.1 million farmers, and gathered data on 265 crops and 3,500 crop varieties. “I was reading about the plight of the farmers, especially smallholder farmers, who don’t get any support when their ...
Farming on autopilot: Agritech startup Fasal uses IoT to help horticulture farmers go remoteedit
YourStory – Online
or decades, Indian agriculture has relied on farmers’ intuition when it came to crop cycles, soil nutrients, climatic conditions, and other parameters. But even experienced farmers have not always been able to escape the perils of climate change, losing their crops to unpredictable weather conditions, soil degradation, and unmitigated pest attacks. This is what entrepreneur Ananda Verma, who hails from a farming family of UP’s Azamgarh District, remembers of his father’s trysts with agriculture.
CropIn Raises $20 Mn in Funding Led by Temasek backed ABC World Asiaedit
IndianWeb2 – Online
CropIn, a leading global artificial intelligence and data-led agri-tech organization empowering stakeholders to reimagine agriculture with data, has raised US$20 million in a Series C funding round led by ABC World Asia, an Asia-focused private equity fund dedicated to evidence-based impact investing.
Existing investors Chiratae Ventures, Invested Development and Ankur Capital also participated in this funding round. Other new investors in this round include CDC Group and Kris Gopalakrishnan’s family office Pratithi Investment Trust.
CropIn will use this capital infusion to focus on its global expansion, while continuing to innovate on its machine learning-based predictive analytics platform, SmartRisk to further strengthen its artificial intelligence capabilities. CropIn is also investing to penetrate deeper in its target markets globally. Recently, ...
Govt. Policies
All India Farmers Association Throws Weight Behind Agrarian Laws, Shares 5 Suggestionsedit
Republic World – Online
Amid the ongoing farmers’ protests, the All India Farmers Association (AIFA) extended support to the three agrarian laws passed by both Houses of Parliament in September 2020. A delegation met Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar under the leadership of former PM Lal Bahadur Shastri’s grandson and AIFA working president Sanjay Nath Singh on Wednesday. In the memorandum submitted to Tomar, the farmers’ body attributed the crisis in the agriculture sector to non-remunerative farming and price manipulation at the APMC markets by vested interests.
Terming the passage of the farm reforms as a “watershed moment” for agriculture, it opined that this will lead to an exponential growth in this sector’s contribution to the GDP and prosperity of rural ...
Stubble Burning
India Inc’s aid to kisan to obviate stubble burningedit
The pioneer – Online
At a time when all-out efforts are being made to cut down air pollution in Delhi-NCR, including by incentivising ways to dispose of stubble without setting it afire, India Inc is coming forward to contribute towards the august cause.
New Holland Agriculture donated farming equipment to the Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Chhaulas, Dadri, and Greater Noida in Gautam Budh Nagar district for carrying out economically viable and environmentally sustainable straw management. Local MP Dr Mahesh Sharma and Dadri MLA Tejpal Nagar were present on the occasion.