Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

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panduranghari
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by panduranghari »

Thank you Sbajwa ji,
My understanding of agriculture is next to nothing. I am basing my opinions on the talks I am hearing on youtube. Most are making me see things so differently than what I know. I did not know about Verka.
Agriculture around the world is always highly subsidized.
Yes Theo ji. I do not disagree. But the interesting point is, even if we do not eliminate subsidies, if we reduce them and put that extra left over into investments for agri innovation, we will be better off than where we are today.
vishvak
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by vishvak »

Subsidies in wealthier countries are the ones that make products from poorer countries impossible to compete, not the other way around. And that includes not just farming but also dairy products, sugar production, and so on.
link
Members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development spent a total of $258 billion subsidizing agriculture in 2013, OECD data show.
The dispute resolution however go on at snail's pace only unlike first world quick resolution system. Then there is also issue of 'dysfunction in global commodity market'. Read it all.
More from wiki Poverty in developing countries
..
Moreover the same study found that the least developed countries have a higher proportion of GDP dependent upon agriculture, at around 36.7%, thus may be even more vulnerable to the effects of subsidies. It has been argued that subsidised agriculture in the developed world is one of the greatest obstacles to economic growth in the developing world; which has an indirect impact on reducing the income available to invest in rural infrastructure such as health, safe water supplies and electricity for the rural poor.[38] The total amount of subsidies that go towards agriculture in OECD countries far exceeds the amount that countries provide in development aid.
ramana
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by ramana »

More dal less bhaat



More dal, less bhaat
Government should devise a crop-neutral incentive structure to attract farmers to pulses over paddy.

At present, incentives are skewed in favour of rice, wheat and sugarcane. Policies need to be tweaked to bring incentives for pulses at par with, say, rice.

Written by Ashok Gulati | Updated: June 18, 2015 12:11 am


Policymakers and consumers can rejoice in the light of the latest price data. Food inflation in particular has witnessed significant moderation. In May 2015, food prices were up by only 2.3 per cent at wholesale and 5 per cent at retail levels over May last year. The increases in minimum support prices for the current season are also within 5 per cent for most commodities (paddy MSP at 3.7 per cent). This surely brings relief to policymakers combating close to double-digit food inflation just a year ago.

However, this should not lead to complacency on the food price front, as prices of essential commodities like pulses have increased by a whopping 23 per cent over the same period. Some pulses, especially urad and tur, increased by 30 per cent.

There have also been reports that the retail prices of urad and tur in select cities have increased by more than 50 per cent. All this has happened while India imported 4.6 million metric tonnes (MMT) of pulses in 2014-15 (FY15), up by 27 per cent over the previous year.

Dal-bhaat or dal-roti is considered to be a poor man’s diet. But dal today seems to have become a luxury that only the better-off can afford. It is an important source of protein for vegetarians and is slipping away from the hands of the poor. Fearing that prices of pulses can flare-up further, the government has announced its intention to increase imports. The problem is that urad and tur have limited international markets, and India sources it primarily from Myanmar, Tanzania, etc. The supplies in those countries cannot increase quickly, and thus prices are bound to rise. As a result, our pulse import bill, which was already $2.8 billion in FY15, up 33 per cent from FY14, is likely to go up even more.

Pulses in India are grown on about 25 million hectares (mha) of land, largely rain-fed, with only 16 per cent under irrigation. Production hovers between 18-20 MMT. Pulses need much less water and are nitrogen fixing, so they do not need much chemical fertiliser. They can thus help save on large input subsidies (power, irrigation and fertiliser), much of which are normally cornered by rice, wheat and sugarcane, as these crops have high irrigation cover and higher fertiliser consumption.

What is the story about rice (bhaat)? May WPI for rice is down by 1.8 per cent. Interestingly, even in a drought like FY15, India exported 12 MMT of rice worth $7.8 billion. In the last three years, India has consistently exported more than 10 MMT of rice, becoming the world’s top exporter. Of the 12 MMT of rice exported in FY15, 3.7 MMT was basmati and the remaining 8.3 MMT, non-basmati. In terms of value, basmati accounted for 57 per cent of total rice export earnings. India produced 101 MMT of rice from about 43 mha, almost 60 per cent of which is irrigated.

The key point in the case of rice is that it needs high doses of water for irrigation, roughly 3,000-5,000 litres per kg of rice, depending on where it is being grown. The father of Pusa basmati, V.P. Singh, tells us that Pusa-1509 consumes about one-third less water than non-basmati, and that the consumptive use of water in rice is much less, just 12-15 per cent. But 30-40 per cent of irrigation water is lost through evaporation and roughly half goes back to groundwater with much higher nitrate content, polluting potable water. This percolated water has to be lifted time and again through highly subsidised power.

The point to consider from the policy perspective is that part of the export competitiveness of rice (10-15 per cent) comes from these large subsidies. Also, there is a government system of procurement of paddy/ rice, which reduces risk for rice farmers. Pulses, by contrast, neither have any such government system of procurement, nor benefit from large input subsidies. Most are banned/ restricted from exports, and imports are allowed at zero duty, while rice imports attract 70 per cent duty. This seems to be a comedy of errors.

What is the policy correction needed so rice and pulses get equal and fair treatment in terms of incentives to farmers? Crop-neutral incentive structures are the need of the hour. At present, incentives are skewed in favour of rice, wheat and sugarcane, and consequently, the nation is overloaded with their stocks. Policies need to be tweaked to bring incentives for pulses at par with, say, rice. To do this, first, the rice import duty needs to be slashed to 5-10 per cent, if not zero, so that the rice trade is truly open at both ends. Second, direct buying of pulses from farmer groups needs to be encouraged by private-sector organised industry/ retail groups, or by a wing within the FCI, and through warehouse receipt systems. This is to give farmers a higher share of the consumer’s rupee as an incentive to produce more pulses. Third, although good technology will increase yields of pulses in due course, in the short to medium run, bringing more pulses’ area under irrigation can help stabilise their yields at a reasonably satisfactory level. For this to happen, policy must reward those ready to shift to pulses, especially in the Punjab-Haryana belt, where the water table is fast depleting. High-end technology, such as digitised land records, satellite/ drone images of changing cropping patterns and Aadhaar-linked accounts, can be used to ensure that these rewards go only to those who grow pulses.

Only if one can be bold and put in place innovative policies to create a crop-neutral incentive structure will pulse production in India increase. Can the Narendra Modi government create a level playing field for dal-bhaat through crop-neutral incentive structures? The payoff will be high, both economically and politically.

Co-written by Shweta Saini. Gulati is Infosys Chair Professor for Agriculture and Saini is a consultant at Icrier.
has lot of agriculture stats.....
Suraj
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Suraj »

Farmers diversify crops to deal with scarce rains
Vikas Chaudhary, a farmer in Haryana's Karnal district, started using a maize planter in 2012. The acquisition of a happy seeder around the same time helped him sow wheat directly. The two machines helped him reduce input costs substantially.

"With the help of machines, I have managed to reduce the input cost for paddy by Rs 2,000 an acre, for wheat by Rs 2,500 and for moong by Rs 1,000. The labour requirement, too, has come down by at least 15 per cent," says Chaudhary sipping orange juice in his office adjoining his sprawling farm on a hot Sunday afternoon.

Chaudhary' acquisitions include a happy seeder, a zero till drill, a laser leveller, a maize planter and, recently, a green seeker. The last one provides information about the amount of urea needed on a particular piece of land depending on the crop sown.

Unlike neighbouring Punjab, Haryana has been late in mechanising its farms, but the trend is picking up. Labour shortage and threat of deficient monsoons are pushing the adoption of farm machinery. In Punjab mechanisation is driven by village cooperative societies, but rich farmers are driving the change in Haryana. "Our village had just one happy seeder. I expect the number to touch five this year. The adoption of machines is slow, but it is catching up," says Chaudhary.

Machines are not the only change visible in Haryana's farms. Farmers say they are choosing crops that need less water. This area is known for growing paddy and basmati used to be a favourite variety for most farmers. "Most farmers are going in for parimal and other varieties of rice this year. The steep fall in prices of basmati last year is a factor. Other varieties need less water and grow faster. This helped me make up my mind," says Harjit Singh, brother of the village sarpanch of Nilokheri village.

Popular varieties likely to be sown this year include PR 123, 124 and 359. They are ready for harvesting within 100 days where basmati takes at least 120 days. Non-basmati varieties also need 25 per cent less water. Some farmers are betting on growing maize, which needs even less water, and the harvesting time is 70-80 days.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Pranay »

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/busin ... world&_r=0

The ripple effects of the beef ban in Maharashtra...
There have been bans on beef in other Indian states for decades — the Maharashtra ban was the 11th — but there is no body of research on the economic effects. One result could be more buffalo slaughter. Exports of buffalo, which are not revered, rose 16 percent during B.J.P.’s first six months in office, compared with the same period a year earlier. According to India’s most recent livestock census, buffalo make up just over a third of the national bovine inventory, yet their proportions are significantly higher in states like Haryana and Punjab where beef bans have been in place since shortly after independence in 1947. States that do not prohibit cattle slaughter, such as Kerala and West Bengal, have almost no buffalo.

At Deonar, the number of buffalo being slaughtered is rising: about 300 a day, up from 90 before the ban. Indian buffalo meat is already prized in the Arab and East Asian markets. Last year, India exported $4.3 billion of beef, ostensibly all from buffalo, because India has never allowed the export of cattle meat, even before the recent law was passed. Still, a Mumbai exporter of buffalo meat with 25 years of experience said that it was well known in the industry that cattle meat regularly made its way into exports.

“India is such a country that water finds an outlet,” said the exporter, who asked not to be named for fear of repercussions. “With the ban in Maharashtra, the beef export hub will shift to Chennai.”

With the Bombay High Court’s imprimatur now on the ban, the sense that a popular movement or legal attack can overturn it is waning.

Before the appeal in the high court was rejected, Sarva Shramik Sangh and the statewide Qureshi community were able to draw thousands of protesters to the center of Mumbai.

On May 5, the union planned another rally, advertising to journalists that it expected 100,000 to descend on the city from all over the state. Fewer than 100 people showed up.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by vasu raya »

Indian scientists' new DNA chip for speeding up rice breeding
One Chinese lie has been finally nailed this time by a team of Indian scientists who provide irrefutable evidence that rice did originate in India, a fact contested by China.

If one thought the Asian Big Brother was only fighting a proxy war to usurp Arunachal Pradesh, parts of Kashmir and encircle India with a 'string of pearls' in the oceans, there was also a deeper scientific conspiracy to rid India of the tag that our staple food rice actually originated in China and not in Mother India. Ownership of intellectual property is a hugely emotional issue and can lead to bruising skirmishes.
Traditional wisdom has to be guarded at all costs.

Lead researcher Nagendra Kumar Singh, a biotechnologist working at National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology, Indian Agriculture Research Institute, New Delhi, says "Our work proves that rice was indeed domesticated in India."

Rice is native to India is the verdict of a team of scientists at IARI who, while publishing their findings in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, have effectively proved that the rice varieties grown in India have actually originated in India.

This finding which demolishes the Chinese claim is actually a colateral benefit of a neat new development from Singh's laboratory, the development of a new 'DNA chip for rice' a handy tool that will speed up development of new varieties of rice as the world tries to adapt to a changing climate. This chip will also help finger print rice varieties.

Rice is considered to be the 'king of cereals', hence rival claims on its centre of origin cause a lot of heart burn in research community. In the 20th century, it was widely accepted that rice was independently domesticated in both China and India.

But, Chinese literature attributed the domestication of rice to legendary Chinese Emperor Shennong. This legend from Beijing got bold impetus when a landmark 2011 research paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences refuted the widely held belief that India was also a centre of origin of rice.

It suggested that a single domestication event some 8,200–13,500 years ago, in the Yangtze Valley of China was the source of all rice in the world.

This fact peeved many Indian researchers until this week's new finding which succinctly refutes the Chinese claim.

Concurring with the IARI's claim, Gurdev S Khush, Adjunct Professor, University of California, Davis, and former head, Plant Breeding Genetics and Biotechnology, International Rice Research Institute, Philippines says, "This new paper certainly leads to the conclusion that some of the varieties were domesticated in India."

Therefore, in a way it possibly settles the controversy that China alone should take the credit for giving the world this wonder crop. It seems ancient farmers more than 10,000 years ago independently in both countries figured out that rice was a great plant to cultivate. The National Gene Bank in India houses about 90,000 different varieties of rice and in parts of Odisha and Chhattisgarh wild relatives of rice can still be found.

The 13-member team mainly from IARI actually set out to develop a unique DNA Chip (rather different from a computer chip) that would help look for the best genes and speed up development of new varieties. The scientists developed unique genetic probes which are embedded on the surface of a glass plate and when a suitable genetic mixture extracted from leaves of rice is poured, the wanted regions glow under special conditions this helps the scientists identify the presence or absence of the right gene combinations.

The new IARI Rice Chip accommodates 50,000 combinations of genes on a single plate and is today the best of its kind in the world. Its nearest rival can house only 44,000 variants and was developed by Susan R McCouch at the Cornell University in USA a few years ago.

Singh says, "India was forced to develop its own 'rice chip' after the American team denied India the import of this technology." The team has now patented this new 'rice chip' and the knowhow will be available for all breeders to use.

Singh says traditional plant breeding takes anything up to 15 years to develop a new variety of rice but if one uses the new 'rice chip' the time taken to breed can be halved. This, he says, is especially useful as there is a need to hurriedly make agriculture 'climate resilient' as vagaries of weather affect the globe due to global warming.

The new chip is already finding use and Singh says the popular Pusa Basmati-1 variety has recently been made resistant to a damaging disease called 'rice blast' and to develop this new resistant variant the chip was deployed. The chip is also being used to develop varieties of rice that can tolerate long durations of flooding.

The team developed the 'rice chip' in about 5 years and at a cost of Rs 30-40 lakh and help was taken from a private Californian firm Affymetrix that custom makes these chips. "India should be proud of this breakthrough," says Khush.

According to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, India has the world's largest area under rice with 42.5 million ha and is the second largest producer with 106 million tonnes - in 2014 next only to China.

It contributes 21 per cent of global rice production. Within the country, rice occupies one-quarter of the total cropped area, contributes about 40 to 43 per cent of total food grain production and continues to play a key role in the national food and livelihood security system.

Rice export contributes nearly 25 per cent of total agricultural exports from the country. However, productivity of rice is only 2.54 tonnes/ha of milled rice as against the global average productivity of 3.28 tonnes/ha. In contrast, China produces more rice by cultivating just about 29 million hectares with yields almost double that of India.

Singh says, "Modern molecular breeding can help bridge this yield gap and the chip will be helpful."

An ICAR estimate for the production of rice in 2050 suggests that by then the population would touch 1.63 billion and India would need to grow about 136 million tonnes of rice, possibly on a smaller cultivable area and with increased shortage of water.

Khush says, "The new rice chip will certainly help speed up rice breeding and thus will contribute to food security."
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by chaitanya »

Postal department to help farmers sell their produce online
If you are a farmer looking to sell paddy, cotton, or any other farm produce, take it to the post office. India's postal department is set to launch a pilot programme that seeks to help farmers sell their produce over the Internet, that too without spending a paisa on transport. The plan is to deploy postmasters in villages to collate details from farmers on their produce and upload the data online for traders to peruse and make decisions.

India Post, which is taking up the role of a mediator here, will launch the pilot project in two locations in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana over the next couple of weeks, said BV Sudhakar, the chief postmaster general of the circle covering the two Telugu-speaking states.

The initiative is part of India Post's efforts to put its vast network of post offices and employees into use at a time when the advent of emails and proliferation of mobile phones, instant chat apps and express courier services made its core service of delivering letters mostly irrelevant. The department's new areas of interest include financial services and insurance. It is also exploring new-age business opportunities to generate revenue.

Under the new project, postmasters will use smartphones to take photos of the farm commodities and upload the details on a website that will act as a trading platform.

"While it is free for farmers, India Post will collect a nominal fee from the buyers, apart from stipulating a condition that buyers should use the services of India Post for transporting the farm commodity to the required destination," Sudhakar told ET. Terming it a first of its kind initiative and a win-win for both farmers and traders, Sudhakar said that, based on the results of pilot project, the postal department will decide on extending the service across the country.
Prem
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Prem »

Kakkaji
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Post by Kakkaji »

Good article with details on why it makes more economic sense for large dairy farmers in agriculturally developed states like Punjab and Gujarat, to have foreign cows rather than Desi ones:

Punjab Dairy farmers see no economic benefits in switching from Holsteins to Sahiwal
“An average Holstein Friesian (HF) cow gives 10,000-12,000 litres of milk in a 10-month lactation cycle, whereas the yields from a desi cow are only 3,000-3,600 litres. Also, an HF calf takes just two years to mature and start producing milk, while it is three years for desi breeds,” notes Daljit Singh, who rears over 400 animals at Sardarpura village in Ludhiana’s Jagraon tehsil and is also president of Punjab’s Progressive Dairy Farmers’ Association (PDFA). Balbir Singh, a 50-cow dairy farmer from Udhowal in Nawanshahr district and general secretary of PDFA, believes it is economical to keep desi cattle only if their milk can be sold at Rs 100 per litre and the government also subsidises feed costs.
I think Desi cows make more sense for small/ marginal farmers, with 2-4 cows, in poorer states who cannot afford to purchase or maintain the foreign cows. Spreading the cooperative network widely to UP/ Bihar/ Bengal will help.

Dairy farming in Punjab/ Gujarat is scaling up to international levels already. No room for any inefficiency there.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Abhay_S »

Kakkaji wrote:Good article with details on why it makes more economic sense for large dairy farmers in agriculturally developed states like Punjab and Gujarat, to have foreign cows rather than Desi ones:

Punjab Dairy farmers see no economic benefits in switching from Holsteins to Sahiwal
“An average Holstein Friesian (HF) cow gives 10,000-12,000 litres of milk in a 10-month lactation cycle, whereas the yields from a desi cow are only 3,000-3,600 litres. Also, an HF calf takes just two years to mature and start producing milk, while it is three years for desi breeds,” notes Daljit Singh, who rears over 400 animals at Sardarpura village in Ludhiana’s Jagraon tehsil and is also president of Punjab’s Progressive Dairy Farmers’ Association (PDFA). Balbir Singh, a 50-cow dairy farmer from Udhowal in Nawanshahr district and general secretary of PDFA, believes it is economical to keep desi cattle only if their milk can be sold at Rs 100 per litre and the government also subsidises feed costs.
I think Desi cows make more sense for small/ marginal farmers, with 2-4 cows, in poorer states who cannot afford to purchase or maintain the foreign cows. Spreading the cooperative network widely to UP/ Bihar/ Bengal will help.

Dairy farming in Punjab/ Gujarat is scaling up to international levels already. No room for any inefficiency there.
Read this article about Gujarat Dairy a while back. looks like 24 hrs electricity is really important for this industry

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/ ... -churning/
Last edited by Abhay_S on 20 Aug 2015 06:33, edited 1 time in total.
Pranay
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Pranay »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6fTfz7snXo

Indian Cow breeds - good comparison of Indian/Cross bred cows.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Prasad »

“Sab rab di meherbani hain (everything is God’s grace)”

A bunch of punjabi farmers working wonders in Ramnad district in TN.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by SBajwa »

Sikhs have been in past invited to work on farmland in Uzbekistan, Mongolia,

http://www.sikhnet.com/news/mongolia-wa ... bi-farmers

Sikhs in Argentina
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indians_in_Argentina

Sikhs growing Bananas in Australia
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... 092739.cms

Sikhs in New Zealand.
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/ ... ing-family

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/j ... ts-farming

he sun dips, the cattle low as they are driven back to the farms and a telephone rings with a Bollywood soundtrack tone. Tujinder Singh is calling the sarpanch – the elected head – of Manochahal, his native village 30 miles from India's western border.

The conversation – about crops, prices, weather and mendacious middlemen – is like a million or so similar early-evening calls placed by farmers across south Asia. Except that the land that Singh is now tilling is in Georgia, the small mountain nation in the Caucasus.

Singh, 38, is one of a new wave of farmers pioneering one of the world's more unlikely migrations. During a recent spell as a cook in Düsseldorf, Germany, he heard about thousands of acres of fertile land on former collective farms lying fallow in Georgia for want of manpower.

The contrast with his native Punjab, with its surging population and high land prices, was striking. So two months ago, he and three friends flew from Amritsar to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, to seal a deal for the lease of 50 hectares. Back for a short break and some tandoori chicken, Singh said he was very happy with the move, even if he remains slightly vague about the geography of his new home.

"We are paying $950 [£580] for each hectare for a 99-year lease. You'd not get much for that in the Punjab. I'm not sure if the farm is in the north or south but it is sort of over by Turkey and Armenia," he said.

Singh and his associates are far from alone. A growing number of Punjabi farmers are heading for Georgia. Agents in major towns such as Jalandhar are advertising Georgian land deals and business is brisk.

"It started a while back, just a dozen or so. Maybe now it is hundreds. Once words spreads there will be many. They come to me for passports. They are looking for pastures new," said JS Sodhi, the bureaucrat who issues travel documents in Amritsar, the nearest major city to Manochahal.
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The farmers of the Punjab, known as the grain basket of India, have long searched overseas for new land. An earlier wave of migrants went to Canada, where urbanisation meant thousands of farms were empty. More recently, Punjabi farmers have been buying or renting thousands of hectares in Ukraine, Uzbekistan and across eastern and central Africa.

"Punjabi people are always going to different countries. They are very adventurous and enterprising," said Sodhi.

The money the farmers make overseas is often sent back to buy land at home, contributing to the rise in prices that forced them to leave in the first place. Georgian officials in India say the new arrivals may be disappointed.

"We are not encouraging them. They are going on their own. There are some private people in Georgia selling land. We have no programme for this," said one last week.

It is illegal for a foreigner to directly own land in the country and, though it is relatively cheap, it is less abundant than often reported, a second official pointed out. A recent project to attract farmers from overseas, particularly white South Africans, was a failure.

But attempts to dampen enthusiasm seem unlikely to have much immediate effect. "There's a huge hunger for land and it's said to be very good land over there, fertile and well irrigated," said Gokul Patnaik, a Delhi-based specialist on global agriculture. "It's mechanised farming but the Punjab is the one area of India where tractors are widely used so that won't be too much of a problem."

Nor is the cultural gulf separating the Caucasus and western India an obstacle. "I like the food and the people are very friendly," said Singh, though he admitted that not speaking Georgian in a country where few speak Punjabi was "a challenge".

Some in the Punjab fear an exodus from the villages and the end of a centuries-old way of life. Dulwinder Singh, the village head of Manochahal, says he does not think large numbers of young farmers will follow his neighbour to Georgia, however.

"Over there you work the land, you invest in it, you sweat over it, but it is yours just for 99 years. Then what?" he asked, as he sipped tea with four neighbours outside his farmhouse. "My land here was worked by my father, my father's father, his father and as far back as anyone can remember. What can replace that?"
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

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Hedging the kiwi for the apple
Kiwi was first grown in Himachal Pradesh almost 20 years ago on an experimental basis. Only in recent years has there been a rise in demand for it in the fruit markets of Delhi, Punjab, even Mumbai. Farmers are getting a good price in the local market as well, due to its popularity with tourists.

“The best thing is that the kiwi fruit starts becoming available from the moment the festival season begins in October till the end of the year. Gifting kiwi fruit-boxes is becoming a trend,” explains Sood.

In Shimla, the State capital, slices of a sweet-sour variety of kiwi are sprinkled with chaat masala and sold for ₹20. A single sweet kiwi fetches ₹30-40. Processing units buy it, too, for juice and winemaking.

The kiwi plant takes three years to bear fruit, yielding from one to three quintals. Sood says he uses only organic manure and has put in place water harvesting and drip irrigation along with a dozen solar panels to light up the area.

Unlike apple, kiwi does not require much work or attention. “All one needs is a space of about five metres between adjacent plants, and a strong iron structure and net to hold the heavy bunches of Kiwi fruit. As it fruits in winter, there aren’t many post-harvesting issues. What is more, monkeys and birds don’t like the fruit, so there are fewer chances of destruction by them.

The Himachal Pradesh government has been encouraging farmers to take up kiwi cultivation by providing training and financial assistance. This has borne fruit. Today, over 500 farmers cultivate kiwi in 120 hectares, with an annual production of 270 tonnes. The fruit is cultivated both in open fields and in polyhouses.

According to Sudhir Katiha, Deputy Director of the State Horticulture Department, farmers are switching to kiwi in some areas of Shimla, Kullu and Mandi districts where apple production has fallen due to climate change.

“It took decades for apple to become a part of the middle-class’s food basket, and the time is not far when kiwi too will become a popular fruit without the ‘elite’ tag and add to the State economy in a big way,” says a hopeful Sood.
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Centre plans fisheries push
Officials said a big thrust in the programme would be on using untapped water resources for breeding inland fish and making available quality fish feed to fishers. India has vast untapped water resources in the form of rivers and canals (0.2 million km), floodplain lakes (2.9 million hectare), ponds and tanks (2.4 million hectare), reservoirs (2.9 million hectare) and brackish water (1.1 million hectare).

Training fishers in new technologies would be a key part of the programme, including cage culture.

Though India’s overall fish production has shown a steady rise in recent years, the sector suffers from low-scale, stagnating yields of inland and freshwater aquaculture, and poor infrastructure for marine fishery, leading to an estimated 15-20 per cent post-harvest loss.

P Krishnaiah, former chief executive of NFDB, said India had not realised the potential of deepwater sources, while over-exploiting its shallow water resources.

“In the inland fisheries sector, focus should be on technologies like cage cultivation in reservoirs. In exports, the thrust should be on value-added products,” he said.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by srin »

Analogous to ITI for training manufacturing workers, is there a corresponding institute to train the farmers ? On best practices, which fertilizer, mixed cropping etc ?
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Kakkaji »

srin wrote:Analogous to ITI for training manufacturing workers, is there a corresponding institute to train the farmers ? On best practices, which fertilizer, mixed cropping etc ?
That's what the agricultural universities are supposed to do. I think each state has one
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Vayutuvan »

Kakkaji: Agricultural Universities grant BSc and entry requirement is - I am guessing - a good BPC percentage in 11-12 (Intermediate) and an entrance exam which are much higher than what ITI requires. There needs be vocational institutes which would allow 10th grade diploma and possibly some kind of aptitude test to whether the person is suited for agriculture. If not they can be directed to ITI. May be a joint aptitude test in regional languages needs to be designed to separate agriculturally inclined from manufacturing inclined and the correct vocational training given to people with aptitude.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by chaanakya »

srin wrote:Analogous to ITI for training manufacturing workers, is there a corresponding institute to train the farmers ? On best practices, which fertilizer, mixed cropping etc ?
Krishi Vigya Kendras.

BTW almost all agri related institutes IARI, Agri University, State research farms/Institutes have very tight integration with farmers for disseminating technical knowledge and propagating new varieties/strains of existing crops. They do train farmers in new techniques. But for a country of the size of India , efforts now may seem less. Green Revolution would not have been possible but for these efforts and willingness of farmers to adopt new strains , practices.
IFFCO NABARD and other assorted agencies help farmers as do state agencies and agri dept people. But Govt is Govt and Agri sector is facing so many issues including loss of revenue, crop loss and lack of access to insurance and cheap funds, lack of access to markets ,dependency on rainfall, lack of storage capacity .....
A lot is left to be done yet.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by srin »

^^^ Thank you - exactly what I was looking for !
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by SBajwa »

Punjab Agricultural university (Ludhiana) have two annual Kisan Mela (Farmer's fair)

Check the news from the last Kisan Mela (March)
http://www.hindustantimes.com/punjab/lu ... nlPGP.html

The Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) is all set to hold two-day Kisan Mela on March 20 and 21.

Director of extension education RS Sidhu said the major attractions of fair will be agro-industrial exhibition, field demonstrations, soil and water testing, produce competitions, diagnosis of disorders in plant samples, sale of farm literature, farmers' interaction with experts, technical session, and cultural programme.

“The fair will focus on promoting crop diversification in Punjab and on conserving natural resources,” he added.

Different departments of PAU will put up exhibitions to showcase new farm technologies and latest agricultural practices. The department of plant breeding and genetics will inform the farmers about newly-released varieties such. Besides, experts will educate about crop production and protection technologies.

College of Home Science will educate farm women about dietary management of hypertension, food hygiene and sanitation, balanced diet for healthy living, and drudgery reducing tools.

The School of Climate Change and Agricultural Meteorology will create climate change awareness among the farmers while School of Energy Studies for Agriculture will familiarise the farmers with biogas generation from paddy straw and preparation process of bio-disease.


5 progressive farmers to be honoured

The university administration will honour five progressive farmers on the first day of the fair for setting up rare agricultural examples on Friday. The farmers will be awarded plaques, citations and cash prizes for achieving excellence in agriculture, horticulture, organic farming and farm mechanisation.

Harvinder Singh, a resident of Sangrur district, will be awarded chief minister Award for making great strides in agriculture.

Gurjit Singh Mahal from Bathinda will be awarded for excellence in horticulture. Rajinder Pal Singh of Bathinda will be given CRI Pumps Award for excellence in organic farming. Ravinder Singh Brar of Muktsar, will be awarded chief minister Award for excellence in agriculture and Ramandeep Singh from Faridkot will be awarded CRI Pumps Award for adopting farm mechanization.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Kakkaji »

Check dams, wherever built, are wonderfully alleviating rural misery:

One small check dam helps stem migration in Khohar, Haryana
Yes, this village of largely migrant labourers has transformed in less than a year. And causing this change is an unimpressive construction in a far corner that has brought in its wake impressive results. Water is once again appearing in wells that had gone dry, and moisture is seeping into unproductive soil. This has enthused 40 per cent of the population to stay back in the village and tend to crop and cattle.

Commissioned in December 2014 to recharge groundwater, the check dam close to the village temple was constructed by Sehgal Foundation, the development organisation working in the area. “Covering a catchment area of 255 acres, it has annual rainwater harvesting potential of 32 crore litres, and in 20 years can harvest around 640 crore litres of rainwater,” explains Programme Leader for Water Management Salahuddin Saiphy, whose back-of-the-envelope calculation says that for each rupee invested in the ₹68.62 lakh project, 933 litres of water will be harvested.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by ramana »

The news of the toor dal crop failure was posted in this thread in June 2015. Yet by October 2015, the GOI had to import dal and order raids against hoarders.

I think there is a need for an joint task force (JTF) comprising, Agriculture (prducts0, Finance (funds), Commerce (import/export trade) and MHA (illegal hoarding crackdown) to monitor agricultural commodities and organize imports in a timely manner.
This has been going on since the onion crisis of the late 1970s.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Kakkaji »

ramanaji:

I think the Govt has learnt its lesson. A good start is being made in that the GOI has already instructed the procurement agencies to start purchasing pulses from farmers starting now. A 40,000 ton procurement as the new crop is harvested will create the psychology among farmers to go for pulses cultivation in a big way in future years.

Fadnavis in MH is already incentivising farmers to go for sowing pulses for the Rabi season.

Onion and potato stockpiles are also being built slowly.

GOI needs to dispose off older stocks of wheat and rice, at a loss if need be, and use the money towards procurement of pulses, oilseeds, onions etc.

In a few years these will cease to be election issues.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Nick_S »

Did the British start food looting from India around the 1700's?

Image

http://ourworldindata.org/VisualHistory ... _max-roser
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Vipul »

India to emerge as largest cotton producer.

With domestic trade estimating cotton production at around 400 lakh bales, India is expected to emerge as the largest cotton producer in the world in 2015-16.

Cotton output in all major producing countries in the year, barring India, has been anticipated to be lower than the previous season.

As a result, China has had to vacate its place as the largest producer of cotton to India, according to sources in Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA), the apex body of spinners in the Southern Region.

Quoting reports of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the sources said global cotton production during 2015-16 has been estimated at 23.68 million tonnes, 8.6% lower than previous season production of 25.90 million tonnes.

Cotton production in China and the US has been estimated to be lower by 13.3 and 17.7%, respectively, than that in the previous production.

Though USDA anticipated a marginal reduction in India's production, trade estimates suggested that the production would be around 400 lakh bales of 170 kg each, taking India to the first position, the sources said.

USDA report on India has estimated cotton area in the country in 2015-16 (August to July) at 11.26 million hectares and cotton production at 370 lakh bales.

It anticipated yield to come down to 524 kg per hectare, lower than previous yield of 527 kg, because of deficient rains in the later half of the monsoon season and instances of pest presence in Gujarat and Punjab, the sources said.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Suraj »

^^^
Indian cotton output has risen significantly in just 3 years, from 26 million bales to 40 million bales.

Meanwhile, research suggests rice wasn't domesticated in China, but in India:
Rice was domesticated three times across Asia, not once in China
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Post by Kakkaji »

Nationwide Initiatives to Give Soil Health Cards: PM
NEW DELHI: There will be nationwide initiatives from Saturday where farmers will get soil health cards and other inputs, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday.

In a series of tweets, Modi reaffirmed his government's commitment to make the soil healthier for the benefit of farmers.

"From today, there will be nationwide initiatives where farmers will get soil health cards and other inputs."

"Best wishes to farmers and officials. The government's Soil Heath Card is an endeavour to improve the health of the soil and provide guidance to our farmers on soil related issues," Modi tweeted.

The government launched the Soil Health Card scheme in February.

It provides assistance to state governments to issue SHCs to all farmers in the country at an interval of three years.

Under the scheme, soil health card portal has been developed for registration of soil samples, recording test results of soil samples and generation of SHC along with fertilizer recommendations.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Vipul »

Why two consecutive droughts don't affect India the way it used to?

I am amazed when people ask me why food prices, notably that of dal, have gone up. India has just suffered two consecutive droughts. The question to be asked is why, after a disastrous monsoon, food prices have risen so little.

I became a journalist in 1965, when also India was hit by two consecutive droughts. Foodgrain production fell by 20 per cent, starvation was rampant, and inflation went through the roof. India was pathetically, humiliatingly dependent for survival on US food aid, and lived a "ship to mouth" existence.

Fifty years later, two back-to-back droughts years have made so little impression on the lives and minds of people that they wonder why food prices are up. GDP data shows that agricultural production actually went up marginally in 2014-15 despite a drought. In the current financial year, agricultural GDP rose by 1.8 per cent in the first quarter and by 2.2 per cent in the second quarter, although the rainfall deficiency was 14.3 per cent this year against 12 per cent last year. TV cameramen have scoured the worst-hit districts for starving villagers but cannot easily locate any. The drought is simply not a big news story.

A bad monsoon does not just hit agricultural production and prices: it hits industry and services too. Historically, many industries — notably textiles, jute, sugar and edible oils — were dependent on farm output for raw materials. Most jobs were created in sowing, weeding, harvesting, transporting and processing produce. This explains why economist Arvind Virmani once showed that in the first 50 years after independence, no less than 45 per cent of changes in Indian GDP could be explained by changes in rainfall: other factors put together accounted for only 55 per cent.

The twin droughts of 1965 and 1966 led some foreign exerts to opine that India could never feed itself. Famine 1975, a bestselling book by William and Paul Paddock, predicted global famine by 1975. The authors said limited food surpluses of the West should be conserved for countries capable of being saved, while countries incapable of being saved, like India, should be left to starve, for the greater good of humanity. Indians were angered and horrified by the book, yet it was widely applauded in the West. Environmentalist Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, praised the Paddock brothers sky-high for having the guts to highlight a Malthusian challenge.

Today, we seem barely aware of two successive droughts. What accounts for the change? Some think the Green Revolution increased food grain availability per head. No, grain availability peaked in 1964 and then declined. Mass starvation ended in subsequent droughts mainly because of better distribution: rural employment programmes provided just enough purchasing power in affected districts. People were still hungry, but did not starve.

Incomes rose over the years and Indians switched from cereals to superior foods. So, per capita consumption of cereals declined. This unexpectedly created grain surpluses. So, in the 1990s India became a substantial net food exporter, and the second largest rice exporter in the world. It continues to export food even in drought years. That is amazing for a country that used to be the greatest beggar for food aid.

The Green Revolution raised yields, enabling more to be produced from the same area. Tubewell irrigation meant the rabi crop increased from one-third the size of the kharif crop to as much or more. The total irrigated area increased from one third to 60 per cent. Drought proofing was substantial.

More important, agriculture's share in the economy fell steadily, from 52 per cent in 1950 to just 14 per cent today. Services now constitute 60 per cent of the economy, and don't depend on the monsoon. Industrial production has diversified into engineering and chemical products, and is no longer dominated by farm-based industries like cotton textiles, sugar, and jute textiles.

As incomes rose in the 1970s, farming patterns changed. Per capita production of foodgrains declined, but that of superior foods (like dairy products, edible oil, sugar, tea, eggs, fruit and vegetables) went up. These superior foods provided farmers with more income even as they satisfied the changing needs of a society getting better off.

The share of traditional crops — including cash crops like oilseeds, fibres and sugarcane — dropped from two-thirds to just half of total production. The other half consists mainly of fruits and vegetables, poultry, fisheries, and livestock. These activities are much less monsoon-dependent than traditional crops, and help explain why agricultural GDP managed to rise 2.2per cent in July-September this year despite a drought.

However, this success has been accompanied by grave environmental damage. Free electricity to farmers has encouraged over-pumping and alarming aquifer depletion. Politicians refuse to charge farmers for power, saying this will lose them elections. One compromise may be to give a free solar pump to every farmer, and charge for other electric supplies.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Vipul »

End to dal woes? Scientists breed high-yield super arhar variety.

It could well be the answer to India’s arhar dal woes.

Scientists at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) have developed a new arhar (pigeon-pea) variety that matures in 120 days, gives the same 20 quintal-per-hectare yields of normal 160-180 day plants and is, moreover, amenable to mechanical combine harvesting.

Arhar plants are mostly ‘indeterminate’; they keep growing and, left to themselves, can even become perennial trees. In Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, farmers plant the crop in June-July and harvest it after 250-280 days in March-April. In other parts, especially Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, the varieties grown are of medium duration (160-180 days) and also yield 20 quintal per hectare.

What IARI scientists have now bred is a ‘determinate’ early-maturing pigeon-pea, which produces 20 quintal per hectare in just 120 days.

“It is a totally new plant-type, whose apical meristems (tissues at the tip of the main stem) only produce flowers. Unlike the indeterminate pigeon-pea plants, where the meristematic cells keep dividing and producing vegetative buds (giving rise to new leaves and shoots), here the growth stops with production of flowers and setting of pods,” K V Prabhu, joint director (research) at IARI, said.

But that’s not all. In normal arhar varieties, the flowers produced from the axillary and lateral branches do not set pods at the same time. So, even at the time of harvesting, not all the pods are mature. Some may have already shattered, others would still be developing or be even at the flowering and vegetative bud stages.

In the new plant-type — called PADT-16 (Pusa Arhar Determinate) and bred by a team led by Prabhu and R S Raje, principal scientist at IARI’s division of genetics — the flowering and pod-setting is synchronous, with the crop maturing and ready for harvest in 120 days.

“This is a short, compact plant-type that grows to hardly 95 cm height, compared to 175 cm for medium-duration arhar and 300 cm-plus for perennials. The spacing between rows, too, is only 30 cm (as against 60-70 cm in normal arhar varieties) along with lower plant-to-plant distance (15 cm versus 30-40 cm). Since there are more plants per unit area, it creates a compact canopy,” Raje said.
The benefits are two-fold.

First, being a dwarf semi-erect plant makes pesticide spraying easier. The normal arhar plants rise to six feet levels, at which application is difficult and also tends to be non-uniform. “Here, you can use a regular knapsack pesticide sprayer and ensure every plant is covered. Also, you only need to give one good spray against maruca insect and pod borer at bud initiation stage after 65-70 days,” Raje said.

Secondly, synchronous maturity and podding happening only at the top — because of the compact canopy and no tertiary or quaternary branch growth — means the entire arhar crop can be harvested at one go using combine harvesters. “This is something that the Punjab farmer would want, as in the case of wheat and paddy. An early-maturing, short, compact plant-type precisely fits that requirement,” Prabhu said.

Experts believe that India’s pulses production cannot increase to match growing demand unless farmers in irrigated regions like Punjab, Haryana and western UP take up large-scale cultivation. But that isn’t possible without breeding high-yielding varieties/hybrids amenable to mechanisation.

So, when will the new ‘super’ arhar make it to the fields? “Our immediate priority is seed multiplication. We have supplied the breeder material to the Punjab Agricultural University for further foundation seed multiplication in the coming kharif season. Once the plant variety protection for the new plant-type is obtained, we could even involve private seed companies to enable commercial cultivation by 2018,” said Prabhu. He is also the main breeder of HD-2967, a blockbuster IARI wheat variety currently grown over 10 million hectares.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by disha »

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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by kmkraoind »

Where Alcohol is Not Injurious to Health
NECESSITY MUST surely be the mother of invention, and you can see it happening in some parts of rural Maharashtra where farmers, fed up with fighting pest infestation and low yields, have found a solution in country liquor—such as arrack, toddy and mahua. It’s cheap. A bottle of arrack or toddy costs only between Rs 25 and Rs 30 for 180 ml, which is quite affordable for farmers. About 100-120 ml of alcohol is dissolved in 15 litres of water and sprayed on the plants as a pesticide a couple of months before they bloom. The alcohol serves to stimulate Gibberellic acid in plants, which aids their growth as well. “When alcohol is diluted, it dissolves organic matter in it. We have seen that alcohol is becoming a popular substitute for pesticides,” says Sambhaji More, an agricultural expert.

The experiment first started out in the fields of Nandurbar some years ago, but has now spread to eastern and central parts of Maharashtra to districts such as Latur, Osmanabad, Nanded, Parbhani, Yavatmal and Beed. These places also have a high incidence of country liquor consumption and have a large number of outlets selling the tipple.

Rampant use of chemical pesticides, sometimes sprayed 12 to 15 times a year, has led to a steady decline in soil quality in those districts, resulting in lower yields. “Through the year, we are only spraying pesticides. Last year I spent Rs 65,000 only on pesticides,” says Santosh Sonawane, a farmer from Yavatmal. Sonawane was introduced to the use of alcohol as a pesticide at a weekly market where a farmer was showing off his chilli, eggplant and tur dal yield to everyone. “It was bigger and healthier in size and sold out in minutes. That is when I decided to use it. It has worked like magic. The mixture can also be given to plants through drip irrigation,” he says.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by srin »

Surprised that I didn't see this posted, but there is a GoI vs Monsanto saga going on causing a lot of burn ... and is probably the stage for big confrontation with the Khan

First GoI cut the BT Cotton royalty fees for Monsanto. Here and here.
Then, Monsanto threatened to quit the India market. Here
Govt said take a hike. Here
Indian media has been reporting on ineffectiveness (bollgard worm immunity problems) and link with farmer suicides. Here and here. Our institutions have also started questioning the validity of the patent now..
Also - a very informative read on what's going on behind the scenes. How Monsanto found an able adversary in the Sangh parivaar
Now, the western media has mounted an insurgency. I saw this on LinkedIn of all places. And here.
Kakkaji
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Kakkaji »

From what I have heard is that BT cotton was very effective in increasing the yields and reducing the farmers' costs on pesticides. But it is now losing its effectiveness because the farmers are not following the correct procedue, which is to plant non-BT around the area where the BT is planted in a field.

However, giving up on GM altogether is not the answer either. GM allows farmers to increase yields, reduce use of chemical pesticides, provides more tolerance of drought etc. Organic alone will not provide the scale that is needed in India.

The states that achieve the balance between GM and non-GM, and enforce effectively the regulations and best practices, will achieve sustainable agricultural growth. Others will either lag behind or destroy their soil with pesticides.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by vish_mulay »

For those who are unable to see beyond the ridiculous equation of Latur drought with IPL lawns or Holi celebrations, here are some numbers. There is a lineage of politicians and their cronies responsible for this situation - it is anybody's guess who they are:
1. There are around 11 lakh hectares under SUGARCANE—the water-guzzling monster crop—in Maharashtra. That's about 4% of farmed land in Maharashtra, but it consumes 71.5% of irrigated water, including wells.
2. Of the 205 sugar factories in the state, 70 are in the draught-prone Marathwada alone. In 2012-13, Marathwada added 20 sugar factories even as villages were supplied drinking water through tankers.
3. Marathwada consumed nearly 4,322 million cubic metres (mcum) of water, nearly double the live storage capacity of Jayakwadi dam, to irrigate sugarcane standing on 2.3 lakh hectares.
4. The state is the second-highest producer of sugarcane after UP, but 79% of this is grown in drought prone regions. To produce one kilo of sugar, UP uses 1,044 litres of water, while Maharashtra uses double, 2,068 litres. This does not include more water used by sugar mills to crush and process the sugar, which is an average of 4 lakh litres per day.
5. Its a cash crop. Farmers swear by cane also because the industry has political patronage. Historically, western Maharashtra was the seat of cooperative movements by sugarcane growers. Sugarcane cultivation and sugar industries have for decades received privileged treatment, thanks to the factories being either owned or controlled by the state's politicians.
6. Most of this sugarcane is irrigated either by canals, or dam backwaters or wells in command or groundwater. Irrigating one hectare of sugarcane is akin to irrigating 25 hectares of tur dal or more of groundnut.
7. Sugarcane sector has depleted ground water levels so dangerously that water management experts unanimously recommend that to ensure water for drinking and farming as early as next year, sugarcane cultivation and production must be regulated strongly in drought affected regions. (and they have been saying this year after year for several years.)
(source: various newspaper articles)
One of my friend who has worked extensively in the MH Agri sector has this to say about sugarcane industry in MH.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by JayS »

^^Similar thing is there with floriculture. Roses for example take up even more water per hectare than sugercane. And government is promoting that too. Most of those flowers are exported to Europe for Christmas as there is winter in Europe that time around and hence no local flower production. Some ghastly figures of water requirements for various agri and related products can be seen in following article.

Image

There seems to be no wholistic thinking behind promoting one type of the crop or another, neither at government level nor at anywhere else.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by Kakkaji »

Govt aims to increase food processing sector 2.5 times in 10 years
Faced with mounting losses of agricultural products after harvest, the government has set a target to increase food processing by 2.5 times in the next 10 years. Currently, food processing has achieved only 10 per cent of India’s total agricultural output. But, the government aims to raise it to 25 per cent by 2025,

“The government is promoting the processed food industry to make value-addition in agricultural products. Not only this, the government is also chalking out its programme through different schemes to increase the production of fruits and vegetables and its processing with assistance from the ministry of food processing industries,” said the minister.

But, the agriculture sector is facing a huge problem with mounting post-harvest management losses due to inadequate availability of scientific storage and lack of required care of the stored crop in warehouses. A recent survey showed India’s annual loss worth Rs 1 lakh crore due to non-availability of scientific warehouses.

Meanwhile, the entry of private players in warehouses and the collateral management sector through increased government focus has revived the storage management industry in the past few years.
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Re: Indian Agriculture and Agro-based Industry

Post by KarthikSan »

X-posting from Indian Economy thread:
KarthikSan wrote:Folks...what is the deal at WTO? There is a video doing the rounds on Whatsapp with some guy from TN at a press meet of Tamil TV channels accusing Modi and GOI of surrendering to Western demands on farm subsidies and allowing free import of food grains. He says that Modi govt has sold out the Indian farmer by signing the WTO free trade agreement and that is why Nirmala Seetharaman did not attend the latest round of talks. I haven't seen any news in MSM regarding this. Is this true?
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