-RuralIndiaOnline.org The government’s ‘package’ responding to the crisis is a blend of callousness and cluelessness With his first speech on the coronavirus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi got us to scare evil spirits away by having people bang the hell out of their pots and pans. With his second, he scared the hell out of all of us. With not a word on how the public, particularly the poor, are to access food and other...
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As mandis get shut, here are five ways the government can help farmers cope -Rajalakshmi Nirmal
-The Hindu Business Line Encouraging farmers to hedge through futures and increased use of WDRA warehouses are among key options With the nationwide lockdown to control the spread of Covid-19, mandis where farmers sell their harvest have also been closed. Across the country, the harvest of several crops including wheat, mustard, chana and coriander has started and farmers are sitting on truckloads of grains and pulses. In the kharif season, many farmers lost...
More »Farm Pollution: Happy Seeder produces not-so-happy results on ground -Anju Agnihotri Chaba
-The Indian Express Area under paddy stubble burning in Punjab up despite number of machines almost doubling. Jalandhar: Punjab farmers have sown 4.50 lakh hectares (lh) wheat area this time using Happy Seeders. This is nearly 13% of the total 35.08 lh planted under the rabi cereal crop in the state. Not bad, it would seem, for a relatively new technology, which allows wheat to be directly seeded in combine-harvested paddy fields...
More »Acute shortage of labour to extend Maharashtra's sugar season -Parthasarathi Biswas
-The Indian Express The start of the sugarcane season in Maharashtra is marked by the seasonal migration of around 7-8 lakh labourers from Marathwada and North Maharashtra to the mills in various parts of the state. Pune: Maharashtra’s sugarcane crushing is all set to extend by at least a fortnight as mills complain of acute shortage of harvesting labourers. Mills say that at present around 15-20 per cent less labourers have turned...
More »Satellite imagery, artificial intelligence to improve farm yields in Maharashtra -Kavitha Iyer
-The Indian Express The Maha Agri Tech project attempts to mitigate agricultural risks by using data anlytics to plug gaps. Launched in January this year, the Maha Agri Tech project seeks to use technology to address various cultivation risks ranging from poor rains to pest attacks, accurately predict crop-wise and area-wise yield and eventually to use this data to inform policy decisions including pricing, warehousing and crop insurance. When farmers in...
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