Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
IRDAI moots ‘Model Insurance Village’ concept to boost insurance in rural Indiaedit
The Times of India – Online
To boost insurance penetration in rural areas, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has mooted the concept of ‘Model Insurance Village’ (MIV). As part of this, IRDAI has asked insurance companies to set up MIVs in 500 villages across the country in the first year and gradually scale this up to 1,000 villages in the subsequent two years.
In these model villages, insurance companies will have to work towards covering the entire populations and their properties, farms, machineries, vehicles and different village-level services, among others.
Rural India erases gains with 2.8 million jobs in Apriledit
Live Mint – Online
Rural India has erased gains made since October when the coronavirus infection had begun to decline to record 2.84 million job losses in April for the salaried class alone. This is expected to impact rural consumption.
Salaried people in India’s rural pockets stood at 27.87 million in April, down from 30.72 million in March, and 33.46 million in February, showed monthly data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). Around 5.59 million salaried employees lost their jobs during April and March.
Improving AGRICULTURE improves LIVES- Harisharan Devganedit
APN News – Online
It is an alarming reality that on average, farmers commits suicide in India due to lack of proper technology, financial investments, etc. Addressing this harsh reality, Mr. Harisharan Devgan realized that this is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportion. The image of the farmer family holds a special place in the heart of Mr. Harisharan Devgan. He had a vested interest in the community and environmental health of the farmers and their families.
Adoption is arguably the most powerful intervention available for children in foster care who are deprived of elementary education. Mr. Harisharan Devgan adopted the school, named “Love A Life” located in Andhra Pradesh bringing unique knowledge and skills to the social system.
IIT Ropar launches Certificate course in AI & CPS for Agriculture Automationedit
Tribune – Online
While witnessing a significant advancement in the domain of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) in agriculture automation, IIT Ropar has launched a Certificate course today on “AI & CPS for Agriculture Automation.”
The registration started today and online classes will commence from June 2 for six weeks. The course has been launched by Prof. Rajeev Ahuja, Director of IIT Ropar.
At the launch of the course, he said, “We want to transform India’s agriculture sector by developing innovative technological solutions to maximize productivity, improve upon the market linkages and supply chain efficiency, and bolster the country’s startup ecosystem by providing inputs for agro-business. This certificate course is one of the best offerings in the domain ...
Farm credit stagnant in Punjab for 3 yrsedit
Tribune – Online
Despite high concentration of banks in Punjab, credit growth to farm sector is almost stagnant in the past three years.
According to data, it witnessed a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 0.84% from FY18 to FY20. The state has over 6,300 bank branches comprising public, private, cooperative and regional rural banks.
According to National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), decline in investment credit to agriculture and low offtake to mechanisation are some of the reasons behind low credit growth.
Technology in Agriculture
How Gramophone used tech to increase crop yields by over 30 pc for 8 lakh+ farmersedit
YourStory – Online
India’s agriculture sector contributes 58 percent of employment for the country’s population, but the segment has a lot of information asymmetry.
Sure that technology could remove this asymmetry, Tauseef Khan and Nishant Mahatre, batchmates at IIT-Kharagpur and IIM-Ahmedabad, launched the Gramophone app in 2016. The app, which has mapped over 2.5 million acres of agricultural land, helps farmers get personalised agri advice on crops, soil, weather, etc, and functions as a one-stop solution to achieve better crop yields.
The duo has worked with agri-business companies, agritech-focused venture capital funds, and in agritech startups building farm management solutions.
Indian Ag Tech ecosystem is ready to explode and transform our agricultureedit
Dataquest – Online
Currently, Food and agriculture represents a large untapped sector for the Ag Tech Start-ups to disrupt it. While this trend started a decade ago in India, it’s only in the last couple of years that we have seen reasonable sized investments and an uptick in the volume of Ag-Tech Start-ups
Given that India is a global agricultural powerhouse, our Ag Tech investments are negligible – with cumulative capital flows up to 2019 being $1.9 billion ($657.5 million in 2019, 6.6% of the global investments – as estimated by Think Ag). Even here, data indicates that early stage start-ups are often not getting funded with most of the money flowing into previously funded and mature companies.