Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
India’s Apr-Nov agricultural, processed food exports up 13% y-o-yedit
Business Standard – Online
Indias exports of agricultural and processed food products rose by more than 13 per cent during the first eight months of the current fiscal on a year-on-year basis. As per the data furnished by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, export of products under the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) ambit increased from $11.671 billion in April-November 2020-21 to $13.261 billion in April-November 2021-22. The target for exports under the APEDA basket products has been set at $23.713 billion for 2021-22. “The export of rice was the top forex earner at $5,937 million during April-November 2021-22, growing 11 per cent over the corresponding period of 2020-21 when it had touched ...
Technology in Agriculture
Agritech firm AgNext Technologies partners with NAFEDedit
The Economic Times – Online
Agritech firm AgNext Technologies has partnered with NAFED to digitise quality assessment for Arunachal Pradesh’s organic kiwis. These organic kiwis were launched in New Delhi last week by Arunachal Pradesh Agriculture Marketing Board (APAMB) along with NAFED as the marketing partner, under the national ‘One district One Product’ scheme. Through its quality monitoring platform ‘Qualix’, AgNext also enabled deep-tech based comprehensive traceability. Using QR code mapping, the end-consumers can trace all the steps in the supply chain down to the origin. Speaking on this partnership, AgNext’s CEO & Founder, Taranjeet Singh Bhamra said, “It is an honour to work with NAFED on India’s first AI-based initiative to bring complete quality and traceability management solutions ...
Paddy in India
Andhra Pradesh to speed up paddy procurementedit
The Times of India – Online
The state government is planning to intensify paddy procurement for the current kharif season. The government has pressed into service 774 rythu bharosa kendras (RBKs) to procure paddy from farmers in all 13 districts. While the AP State Cooperative Marketing Federation Ltd (Markfed) is procuring paddy in Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam districts through the RBKs, the AP Civil Supplies Corporation is the procuring agency in the remaining districts. So far, according to officials, procurement has started in 123 of 664 mandals in the district. RBK staff across these mandals have procured one lakh metric tonnes of paddy by Friday noon, worth Rs 190 crore. Payments too are being made through the RBKs ...
Rice millers in Telangana fleece paddy farmers as government backs outedit
Deccan Chronicle – Online
Amidst acrimonious political battle over paddy, rice millers in Telangana are entering into pre-crop agreements with farmers for purchasing the produce for a price much below the minimum support price (MSP). Farmers too prefer it because it is not possible for them to switch over to alternate crops all of a sudden during rabi. While the state government is procuring paddy for an MSP of Rs1,940 per quintal, the millers are convincing farmers to settle for Rs 1,500 saying that it is the net amount they are getting at present from the government as they are incurring an expenditure of Rs 400 per quintal towards transportation charges from fields to procurement centres and again from ...
Stubble Burning
Crores of rupees in subsidies have gone up in smoke as farmers continue to burn stubbleedit
Scroll.in – Online
Harbhajan Singh returned to Sadhanpur village in east Punjab’s Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar district from two days off over Diwali, to find the paddy straw stubble from the three acres he farms, which he had bundled into neat stacks, turned to ash. “I was to transport and sell the bundles to the nearby industrial unit for use as fuel in its boiler, but the farm owner complained it was taking too long and set it on fire,” Singh told IndiaSpend. “I had spent around Rs 7,000 on fuel, labour and other inputs. All of that has now gone to waste.” Harbhajan Singh operates a raker-baler machine every year during the paddy harvesting season to collect and ...
To clear stubble, Punjab burnt 52% of area under rice this yearedit
The Indian Express – Online
Stubble burning has ended in the state post paddy harvesting and Punjab has set stubble on 15.47 lakh hectares (38.21 lakh acres) on fire at the end of this paddy harvesting season, which is 52 per cent of the total rice area in the state. In terms of area this is the lowest area on which stubble was burnt despite that fact that farm fire incidents were the second highest this year. The burnt area, meanwhile, is down by 2.49 lakh hectares as compared to last year. The fire incidents and burnt area recording ended on November 30. There were 71,304 fire incidents this year which were second highest in the past five years ...
Stubble burning is not a hobby for us, says Punjab CM at HTLSedit
Hindustan Times – Online
Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi said on Saturday farmers must be paid to stop the practice of stubble burning, which has in the past led to rising pollution levels in Delhi and neighbouring areas. “I will request you to tell Modiji that stubble burning is not our hobby. I do stop people [from burning stubble] but this time the scale has been low,” Charanjit Singh Channi said while speaking with Hindustan Times’ national political editor Sunetra Choudhury on the last day of HTLS 2021. “Farmers must be paid to collect and destroy the waste. This is the proper solution. After that, farmers will not be able to say why they have been burning ...