Hindustan Times – Online

To ensure timely settlements of claims under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has approved the proposal of the Department of Agriculture for flying drones over 100 districts growing rice and wheat, said Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.

“To ensure timely settlements of claims under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has approved the proposal of Department of Agriculture for flying the drone over 100 districts growing rice and wheat,” Tomar tweeted.

“This is the first remote sensing technology based largest pilot study in the country so far, conducted for crop yield estimation,” he added.

Apart from drone-based images, High Spatial Resolution ...

Down To Earth – Online

India’s agriculture sector makes a significant contribution to its Gross Domestic Product and provides livelihood for many millions of people. Agriculture is not only a means of trade and a source of livelihood, but is fundamentally associated with our culture.

Today though, farmers are distancing themselves from farming activities because of decreasing incomes and are looking at alternative opportunities. These new developments will set into motion an exodus from villages to cities.

Alternatively, in the hope of making quick money from their farmlands, farmers will be keen on giving their land on a contract basis.

Contract farming will prove to be disastrous for the lives of millions of people in India who are associated with ...

DownToEarth – Online

Climate change can reduce agricultural income by 15-25 per cent; it is high time that rationale of climate-resilient agriculture (CRA) is valued and implemented more rigorously.

Following are crucial to address the climate change and achieve sustainable development goals (SDG) in India:

Adaptation of appropriate mitigation technologies such as the cultivation of tolerant breeds to overcome the climate stress Water and nutrient management for efficient productivity and resource utilisation Agro-advisories for timely crop monitoring Conservation agricultural practices to build soil organic carbon and to build congenial environment for plant growth, manure management

Keeping these challenges in view, the Government ...

YourStory – Online

This debt support from YES Bank will help Origo to deepen its presence in agri supply chain domain and will also help overcome challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the company stated. The agritech player intends to use the funds for improving the services and structures within the agricultural ecosystem. Following the development, Sunoor Kaul, Co-founder, Origo Commodities, said,

Founded in 2010 by IIT Delhi graduate Sunoor Kaul and Mayank Dhanuka, the startup has been focused on two elements – supply chain and financing, to ensure that farmers get a fair price and others involved in this ecosystem get access to legitimate capital. With 1,800 employees across 12 states, Origo has been able to support the rural ecosystem through agriculture ...

OpenPR – Online

armonaut, a satellite-based crop health monitoring start-up with headquarters in Bangalore (India), has recently announced its partnership with Godrej Agrovet to help it map over 15000 farmer fields and capture farm-level data for these fields. According to the spokesperson, Godrej has already mapped over 2500 hectares contributing to 1400 field pieces approximately. They are targetting the mapping of over 30000 hectares by the end of the current month to monitor crop health, water stress, evapotranspiration, soil organic carbon, weather forecasting, etc., using the technology provided by Farmonaut.

The founder & CEO of the satellite-based monitoring system announced the big news recently. He stated that “Farmonaut has made geotagging farmer fields more streamlined and a faster process. Our ...

Businessworld – Online

India has its eyes set on becoming $5-trillion economy by 2025. To achieve this feat, Indian economy needs to grow at the rate of 9% per year in actual terms. Becoming ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ or a ‘Self-reliant India’ is another goal in front of us. The government even announced a package to the tune of Rs 20 lakh crore to revive the economy. However, the one core area that really needs to be focused upon is rural inclusion, which will in turn help achieve these dual objectives.

The rural economy contributes nearly 25-30% to the GDP. Earlier, agriculture was the primary source of income and employment in rural India, but is now being displaced by the non-farm and ...

Down To Earth – Online

Agriculture in India is livelihood for a majority of the population and can never be underestimated.

Although its contribution in the gross domestic product (GDP) has reduced to less than 20 per cent and contribution of other sectors increased at a faster rate, agricultural production has grown. This has made us self-sufficient and taken us from being a begging bowl for food after independence to a net exporter of agriculture and allied products.

Total foodgrain production in the country is estimated to be a record 291.95 million tonnes, according to the second advance estimates for 2019-20. This is news to be happy about but as per the estimates of Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), demand ...