Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
4 indigenous species in India that need conservation efforts in 2023edit
Business Standard – Online
For wildlife conservation in India, 2022 will be the year of the Cheetah. In September 2022, eight African cheetahs were translocated to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park, in the hope of reviving this species, extinct in the country for nearly 70 years, and for conservation of grassland ecosystems. Though this project got attention, and money, there are several species of birds, mammals and reptiles indigenous to India, threatened due to illegal hunting, habitat fragmentation, diseases etc., whose conservation requires a greater push in 2023, experts say. “Irrespective of the cheetah project, the other threatened species have to be undoubtedly given attention,” said Kedar Gore, director of The Corbett Foundation, a non-governmental organisation working for wildlife ...
International Year of Millets 2023: India leading the wayedit
The Print – Online
The government of India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi spearheaded the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution for declaring the year 2023 as the International Year of Millets and the proposal of India was supported by 72 countries. UNGA declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets in March 2021. India pushed for recognising the importance of millet and creating a domestic and global demand along with providing nutritious food to the community. Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare on Monday put out a detailed explainer about millets, its benefits, history, and India’s policy intervention and initiatives to promote such nutrition-rich cereals.
India’s agriculture & allied commodities rose by 11% to $ 30 billion April-Oct, 2022: Agriculture ministryedit
The Financial Express – Online
India’s export of agriculture and allied commodities rose by 11% in dollar term to $ 30.21 billion during the April-October period of the current fiscal year compared to the same period in 2021-22, the agriculture ministry said on Monday. Agri-exports had risen by 20% to $ 50.24 billion in the previous fiscal. Wheat, basmati rice, raw cotton, castor oil, coffee, and fresh fruits are the major commodities exported. According to provisional data by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, the value of Basmati rice exports rose by more than 37% in the first seven months of the current fiscal to $ 2.5 billion.
All is not well in India’s agriculture sector. State must help farmers access market systemsedit
The Print – Online
While there could be differences on how to address the issues pertaining to agriculture as a sector and livelihood, the problems are well identified. One need not reiterate the issues of fragmentation of land holdings, unremunerative prices, ecological issues — particularly water table depletion, erosion in the quality of soil, monocropping and resource intensive industrial farming carried out in some geographies. These are accepted problems irrespective of an ideological divide without much debate. However, when it comes to addressing these problems, the jury seems to be divided on two sharply distinct ideological lines.
Monsoon + Indian Agriculture
Heavy rain rained misery on Karnataka farmers in 2022edit
The New Indian Express – Online
Karnataka received good rain this year, at least 400 mm more than the normal. There was heavy rain during pre-monsoon, Southwest monsoon and Northeast monsoon seasons, but it did not help end farmers’ misery as the copious, but unseasonal, rain heavily saturated the soil. At the same time, shortage in fertilisers and wild fluctuation in prices too hit their dreams hard. In the last 22 years, Karnataka has had over 15 years of drought, but things started looking up in the last couple of years with good rain. But that led to flooding in some parts of the state. Thanks to good pre-monsoon showers, many farmers went for short-duration crops and even got ...
Paddy in India
Paddy bags lay in open, Padampur farmers hasslededit
The New Indian Express – Online
With lakhs of paddy bags waiting to be sold, farmers are peeved over slow pace of procurement of kharif harvest in Padampur sub-division of Bargarh district. Paddy procurement in the sub-division, which has 18 market yards and 633 paddy procurement centres began along with the rest of the district on November 21. However, sacks of paddy lying in the open over delay in the procurement process has the farmers worried. Over nine lakh bags of paddy are lying unsold at market yards in Rajbodasambar, Paikmal, Jharbandh, Sohela, Gaisilet and Bijepur under Padampur RMC. While paddy in Padampur which is categorised as common paddy has MSP of Rs 2,040, due to delay in procurement, ...