Agriculture

According to the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S) data, the overall export of the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority increased from $6,485 million in April-August 2020 to $7,902 million in April-August 2021.

Stating that the benefits of Central government's schemes for the agriculture sector should reach the correct farmers, he said, although funds are not a constraint, "it is the implementation of the scheme which should be proper". Addressing the conference of Lt Governors/Administrators of all Union Territories, Tomar, emphasising on the KCC drive, said the Kisan Credit Card cover has been provided to farmers even under the shadow of Covid.

The report, 'A multi-billion dollar opportunity: Repurposing agricultural support to transform food systems', launched late on Tuesday night by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has found that the current support to producers mostly consists of price incentives.

The Minimum Support Price (MSP) for rabi crops is, in most years, announced in October or later, when most of the farmers are done with sowing. Last year, it was announced on September 23 and for the year 2022-23, it was announced last week, on September 8."This has been a deliberate attempt to announce the MSP for rabi season early so that the farmers get ample time to plan their crop," Agarwal.

For the Kharif season, 53.2 per cent rural agriculture households grew paddy, followed by maize (11.3 per cent); bajra (8.3 per cent); cotton (7.2 per cent) and soyabean (six per cent) of the households. The remaining crops such as jowar, ragi, arhar (tur), urad, moong, sugarcane, potato, groundnut and coconut were all each 4.1 per cent or less, said the survey conducted during January 1 to December 31, 2019.

This has been done to encourage the farmers to shift to larger area under these crops and adopt best technologies and farm practices to correct demand-supply imbalance, a Cabinet release said. The government has increased the MSP of Rabi crops for RMS 2022-23 to ensure remunerative prices for the growers for their produce.

This purchase, as on September 5, has benefitted about 130.47 lakh farmers from the ongoing KMS procurement operations with MSP value of Rs 1,67,960.77 crore. Paddy procurement has reached at an all-time high level, surpassing previous high of 773.45 LMT in KMS 2019-20, the Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution Ministry statement said.

According to the government spokesman, a special campaign has been launched in 11 districts of the state and along with the objective of cleaning the Ganga River, organic farming is being done on both the banks of the river. Due to this initiative, not only the cost of agriculture has been reduced but the agricultural production and income of the farmers has also been increased.

Cumulative data rainfall for the month till Monday (i.e. between August 1 to 30) shows that Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Maharashtra, Telangana, Goa and Karnataka in central peninsular India, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Delhi in the northwest India, and Nagaland, Manipur, and Mizoram in the northeast have received deficient rainfall.

With the Rs 290 per quintal rate, the CCEA, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will provide a premium of Rs 2.90 per quintal for each 0.1 per cent increase in recovery over and above 10 per cent, and reduction in FRP by Rs 2.90 per quintal for every 0.1 per cent decrease in recovery, a Cabinet release said. The cost of production of sugarcane for the sugar season 2021-22 is Rs 155 per quintal.