Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
India aims for better practices to cut agri emissions, experts call for clear goalsedit
Hindustan Times – Online
India will step up efforts to curb emissions in agriculture within a national mission for sustainable agriculture, having stayed off a farm action agenda at the recent Glasgow COP26 climate summit, an official aware of the matter said. The mission falls within the ambit of the National Action Plan on Climate Change, a programme that aims to make Indian farms more resilient to changing climate and is being monitored at the highest levels, the official said. Globally, agriculture is responsible for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions, three-quarters of them coming from livestock farming alone. For all its ambitious climate commitments – from Copenhagen to Paris and now, Glasgow’s COP26 – India needs a ...
Indian council of agricultural research looks at new rice to beat climate changeedit
The Times of India – Online
A hardy rice variety, ‘Jaddu Batta’ from Karnataka’s Shimoga district with exceptional tolerance to prolonged submergence under water offers hope for developing a foolproof climate-resistant crop that may help food security. With extreme weather events already registering an increase and problems of salinity, flooding and irregular rise in temperatures having disastrous effects on crops, scientists face a challenge in developing suitable climate-resistant crop varieties. At the Indian council of agricultural research (ICAR), Old Goa, agriculture scientists say they have already standardised and developed salt-tolerant rice varieties – Goa Dhan 1, Goa Dhan 2, Goa Dhan 3 and Goa Dhan 4 – on salt-affected soils of Goa and parts of coastal Karnataka. “Jaddu ...
WTO may propose new agriculture packageedit
The Economic Times – Online
Ahead of a key ministerial conference, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is likely to float a revised draft text for a possible agriculture package to break the deadlock in farm talks at the meeting later this month. Possible immediate deliverables on improved transparency, including on shipments en route or advance notice for export restrictions, language on a possible exemption from export restrictions for UN World Food Programme, and the possibility of including specific post-ministerial deadlines for some topics, could be part of the package. The revised text will be presented by chair of agriculture negotiations, Costa Rica’s Gloria Abraham Peralta, later this week. The previous text was introduced in July. The proposed package ...
Competition
Revolution in Agriculture Technology: Best Electric Tractors for Farmersedit
Krishi Jagran – Online
Electric Tractors are the beginning of new era of Agriculture Technology. A farmer is constantly looking for ways to make farming easier or less expensive. And technology provides a solution to this dilemma Electric tractors are useful in farming since they reduce fuel usage. It is powered by batteries, making farming simple and cost-effective. In this Article, we’re talking about the electric tractors that have already been launched or are about to hit the Indian market and their benefits for future farming GridCon Electric Tractor by John Deere. John Deere revealed the development of a high-performance, self-driving, completely electric tractor. GridCON is an electric cable-powered agricultural equipment that can provide up to 400HP (300kW) of total power.The SESAM (Sustainable Energy Supply ...
Govt. Policies
‘To push diversification, price deficiency payment scheme needed for all crops’edit
The Indian Express – Online
‘To push diversification, price deficiency payment scheme needed for all crops’ With its economy largely dependent on agriculture, Punjab faces daunting challenges in the sector from farm debt, stubble burning to urgent need for diversification. As Assembly elections draw near, state’s new agriculture minister, Randeep Singh Nabha, has no option but to meet the challenges head on. Anju Agnihotri Chaba spoke to him about his plans to redress the problems plaguing agriculture in Punjab. The Punjab government has been performing well on the agriculture front. CM Charanjit Singh Channi stood by farmers in time of distress. Be it a protest against the three farm laws or farmers’ suicides. Ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh, ...
Monsoon + Indian Agriculture
Farmer woes pile up as rains lash Telanganaedit
The New Indian Express – Online
Sleep evaded Karimnagar farmers on Monday night as heavy rains pounded the district without warning. Most of their paddy produce stored at procurement centres was soaked in rainwater on Tuesday and they spent the whole day separating dry and wet paddy, hoping against hope that the market officials would eventually buy their crop. The farmers who had brought their produce to the Mahatmanagar procurement centre in the district alleged that the authorities had been delaying the purchase citing high moisture content in their paddy. They have been waiting for procurement for nearly a week now. Speaking to Express, a farmer named Vadlakonda Chandraiah, who had brought his paddy to the market about a ...
Kerala losing paddy paradise to floods and a silent farmer flightedit
The Times of India – Online
Flooding has been an integral part of life in Kuttanad. The seasonal disruption it inflicts is more than compensated for by the mineral-rich silt it leaves behind in what has become the “rice bowl” of Kerala. But over the last decade, and more conspicuously since 2018, flooding has become regular and, worse, the water doesn’t drain. Experts attribute the flooding to unseasonal rains and to the lowland sinking even further — the first a direct consequence of deforestation of the Western Ghats, and the latter, a result of rising sea levels. The sea-level rise is still fractional but in Kuttanad, the only place in India of substantial size where rice is cultivated ...
Sudden rain submerges paddy againedit
The Times of India – Online
After a few days of respite for farmers, a heavy downpour that lashed Thanjavur for more than 3 hours on Monday night inundated about 1,000 acres of samba paddy crop again. Farmers said a breach on the banks of Konakadungalaru had caused the situation. They are struggling to drain the rainwater to save standing crops. Following the rain, a 20-foot-long breach occurred on the banks of Konakadungalaru near Varagur and Aimbathumel Nagarm in Thiruvaiyaru taluk. Rainwater flowed through the breach and submerged crops raised on about 1,500 acres in Aimbathumel Nagaram, Kadambangudi, Varagur, Nadukavery, Anthali and Kuzhimathur villages. The 15-day transplanted nursery also submerged in water, farmers said. Konakadungalaru takes a course ...
Paddy in India
Worried Telangana farmers sell paddy in Karnataka below MSP, incur lossesedit
The Times of India – Online
Even as the turf war between TRS and BJP over paddy procurement continues with BJP chief Bandi Sanjay’s tour of districts to inspect paddy procurement sparking off fresh tensions, farmers in the border areas of Gadwal and Kothakota in the erstwhile Mahbubnagar district, as well as some villages of Nalgonda district, have started resorting to distress sale of paddy and rice in neighbouring state of Karnataka, mainly Raichur. The farmers are selling the parboiled rice at a much cheaper price of Rs 1,300 per quintal when the minimum support price is Rs 1,940. “Thankfully, the fine variety is getting a price of Rs 1,800 as against the government’s MSP of Rs 1,960 ...
Stubble Burning
Punjab cannot handle its paddy, but it can’t change without helpedit
Hindustan Times – Online
The toxic air in Delhi and adjoining areas is a by-product of multiple factors. But the smoke from stubble burning, which travels to Delhi from the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana is an important contributor to pollution levels. In the period from October 20 this year, the contribution of stubble burning to Delhi’s PM2.5 concentration has ranged between 2% on October 24 to as much as 48% on November 7, according to the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR). Why have governments failed to stop farm fires and their polluting effects? An HT analysis of Punjab’s agricultural statistics show that this will not happen without a holistic re-evaluation of agricultural ...
Air pollution: Haryana leaders against stubble burningedit
The Times of India – Online
Even a day after the Union government has admitted that the stubble burning has very less contribution towards the pollution in NCT Delhi, the issue is however alive and continued among the political parties and their leaders in Haryana. While the Haryana BJP President Om Parkash Dhankar categorically said that his paty, worker and leaders will continue to caution the farmers against stubble burning. Here the major question is of saving the fertility of the land. Stubble burning kills and burns the essential which are required for the fertility of land. Hence we shall now intensify this drive and would provide alternate solution to farmers. Rest, Supreme Court decision has now brought ...
Why Punjab’s short-duration paddy varieties have not solved stubble burningedit
DownToEarth – Online
Gursimran is somewhat dejected as he oversees a combine harvesting machine work his paddy fields. “Though the yield is better than what it has been in the past two years, it is still not as much as I used to get earlier,” he said. The 32-year-old farmer has been growing paddy in his over 10 hectare (ha) ancestral land in Mansa district’s Sadda Singhwala village since he completed a civil engineering degree in 2014. Initially, Gursimran cultivated Pusa 44—the most widely sown long-duration paddy variety in Punjab—but decided to shift to the short-duration PR 126 variety in 2019 to increase his income. “The short-duration variety gives me time to grow intermediary crops after harvesting paddy in ...
Stubble burning dips but air severe; farm fires in Punjab, Haryana higher than previous yearsedit
The Indian Express – Online
Delhi’s air quality returned to the ‘severe’ category Tuesday, though the contribution of farm fires to PM2.5 levels has fallen to around 8%, according to the SAFAR forecasting system. Going by NASA satellite data, the fire count in Punjab this year is the highest since 2016 and has recently surpassed the fire count from last year The cumulative fire count for Punjab till November 16 stood at 74,015, higher than the 72,373 recorded last year, as per data provided by Pawan Gupta, senior scientist, Earth Sciences at the Universities Space Research Association, NASA Marshall Space Flight Centre, USA. The data is from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), an instrument onboard the ...
Tractor industry
Escorts Tractors to Increase Tractor Prices from November 21edit
Krishi Jagran – Online
Escorts Agri Machinery a division of the Farm machinery and constructions equipment major Escorts Ltd on Monday said that it would increase the prices of its farm machinery including tractors from November 21 in order to offset the rise in the commodity prices. The company also said during filing that “there has been a steady rise in commodity prices necessitating a price hike to offset the impact of continuing inflation. The increase in prices would vary across models and variants. This however did not include the minimum amount by which the commodity’s price would increase. In a separate filing, the company also stated that the board of directors will meet on November 18 to ...