Agricultural Sector

Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Tuesday said preliminary reports suggest that there is not much impact on standing rabi crops like wheat due to the current untimely rains and hailstorm. The minister, however, said that the Centre is yet to receive ground reports from the state governments. Speaking with PTI on the sidelines of an event, Tomar said, "There is not much impact on rabi crops as per the preliminary assessment." The state governments are still assessing the damage to the standing rabi crops, he said. The state governments can use the State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF) for providing immediate relief to farmers after conducting the crop survey. The central government can provide more funds from the National Disaster Relief Fund after the submission of a memorandum, he added. Wheat is the main rabi crop, harvesting of which is underway in some states. Mustard and chickpea are other major rabi crops. Many parts of the country received unseasonal rains, hail and

The pact on cultural cooperation signed between India and Egypt will entail a range of activities being hosted in both the countries, including in the fields of music, dance, theatre, library and research and documentation. For continued cultural cooperation, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed for a period of five years, the Union Culture Ministry said in a statement on Friday. The MoU was signed and exchanged on January 25 by Union Culture Minister G Kishan Reddy and Arab Republic of Egypt Foreign Minister Sameh Hassan Shoukry in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, it said. "Both countries look forward to witness a host of cultural activities happening in due course in the realm of music, dance, theatre, literature, library, organising festivals in respective countries and research and documentation, etc," the statement said. The MoU was signed to strengthen the cultural ties with Egypt. Reddy had participat

Retail inflation for farm and rural workers sequentially eased to 6.38 per cent and 6.6 per cent, respectively, in December 2022, mainly due to lower prices of certain food items. "Point-to-point rate of inflation based on the CPI-AL (consumer price index for agricultural workers) and CPI-RL (rural workers) stood at 6.38 per cent & 6.60 per cent in December 2022 compared to 6.87 per cent & 6.99 per cent, respectively, in November 2022, and 4.78 per cent and 5.03 per cent, respectively, during the corresponding month (December 2021) of the previous year," a labour ministry statement said. Similarly, it stated that food inflation stood at 5.89 per cent and 5.76 per cent in December 2022 compared to 6.19 per cent and 6.05 per cent, respectively, in November 2022. It was 2.99 per cent and 3.17 per cent, respectively, during the corresponding month of the previous year. The all-India Consumer Price Index Number for Agricultural Labourers for December 2022 remained stationary at ...

Madhya Pradesh Congress unit has announced that it would reintroduce the farm loan waiver scheme, which was part of its manifesto in the 2018 Assembly polls, if voted to power in the 2023 elections

Traders are confident that total acreage will be 10-15 per cent more than the previous years

As per the developer and some scientists, the GM mustard variety DMH-11 has a yield potential of 28-30 per cent increase over the most common mustard variant available in the country

In Chhattisgarh, traditionally lac is cultivated with nearly 50,000 farmers rearing it on kusum and plum trees and rangini lac on palash and plum trees

They are mostly loss-making, with growing bad assets so the agricultural sector prefers commercial banks

However, this year, traders and market sources are hopeful that there could be a 10-15 per cent rise in wheat acreage

More than 81 lakh metric tonne of paddy has been procured so far in the ongoing Kharif marketing season in Punjab, a senior official said on Thursday. Additional Chief Secretary Anurag Aggarwal said paddy procurement operations were being carried out seamlessly in all grain markets across the state. So far, 84.48 lakh MT paddy has arrived in the mandis, and 81.80 lakh MT has been procured by the various procurement agencies, he said. A payment of more than Rs 11,531 crore has been made to the farmers. Aggarwal was in the Khanna grain market, about 45 km from here, to take stock of the procurement operations. The ACS said the Punjab government was committed to ensure a hassle-free and smooth procurement season and every grain of crops would be procured without causing any inconvenience to the peasantry. He said the farmers were receiving their payments timely besides ensuring foremost priority to prompt purchase. Later, Aggarwal went to the village Libran where progressive farmers

First crop to get such recommendation since Bt cotton in years, say experts

Agro chemicals firm Best Agrolife Ltd has clocked an over five-fold jump in its consolidated net profit at Rs 129.81 crore for the quarter ended September on higher sales. Its net profit stood at Rs 25.18 crore in the year-ago period, the company said in a statement. Total income also more than doubled to Rs 701.17 crore in the second quarter of this fiscal year from Rs 324.71 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year. Best Agrolife Managing Director Vimal Alawadhi said the sales of newly launched products have been good. "Our plants have achieved higher capacity utilization and we have many revolutionary products in the pipeline," he added. Alawadhi said the company's R&D team specialises in innovating new molecules. "We have crafted a niche for ourselves in the agrochemical industry by receiving one or two patents for significant formulations consecutively in the last few years," he said. Alawadhi said the company would come up with tailor-made crop solutions to t

Chhattisgarh is the only state that has been procuring paddy from farmers at Rs 2,500 per quintal, which is higher than what the Centre has set

Fertilizer shops to act as one-stop solution provider for all need of growers

Farmers have indicated that they will continue with the practice unless the govt compensates them suitably for the expenses they will incur by adopting alternative methods of disposing of crop residue

The Centre has clamped export curbs on several paddy varieties as it feels that total production might drop by 10-12 million tonnes due to delayed sowing.

Startup Incubation and Innovation Centre, the technology business incubator at IIT Kanpur, is launching the NIRMAN Accelerator Programme, supported by the Department of Science and Technology

The Delhi government along with the Indian Agricultural Research Institute will provide training in urban farming to the citizens from August for growing fruit and vegetables for self-consumption

Companies can introduce a product in the market and then file with the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) for approval

The Centre has made it mandatory for all exporters to seek prior permission from the inter-ministerial committee on wheat export before undertaking any outbound shipment