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Acquaculture, Finance, Start ups

Funds will be used to strengthen their GIS-enabled fintech product development and accelerate the volume of exports flowing through the platform

Aquaconnect, South Asia’s largest aqua farmers’ network, announced today that it has raised USD 4 million (Rs 29.7 Crores) in a pre-Series A round led by Rebright Partners and Flourish Ventures. AgFunder and 6G Capital also participated in this round, along with existing investors Omnivore and HATCH.

Aquaconnect’s digital platform helps fish and shrimp farmers maximize their income by connecting them with smart farm management tools, financial services and customers. Aquaconnect’s mobile app features predictive SaaS tools for pond management, which improve productivity and help farmers avoid disease risks.

Despite India being the world’s largest exporter of shrimp and second largest aquaculture producer globally, the industry is fraught with various challenges ranging from unscientific farming practices to inefficiencies in the value chain. Aquaconnect’s full-stack platform provides a 360-degree solution for aquaculture farmers. The start-up plans to use this pre-Series A funding to strengthen their GIS-enabled fintech product development and accelerate the volume of exports flowing through the platform. They intend to launch their Series A round in six to nine months.

Raj, Founder & CEO of Aquaconnect, said, “The recent investment from marquee investors like Rebright, Flourish, AgFunder, and others is a strong validation of our goal to become India’s largest aquaculture value chain aggregator, and will help us scale up in both size and scope. We will deploy the fresh capital to scale our farm advisory, financial services, and marketplace for seafood exports.” 

Commenting on the investment Brij Singh, General Partner of Rebright Partners, said, “We are backing Aquaconnect to help enable digital transformation in India’s aquaculture industry by supporting all stakeholders to increase exports of high-quality seafood with traceability to key markets like Japan.”

  Anuradha Ramachandaran, Investment Director of Flourish, said: “Flourish is proud to back Aquaconnect. Raj and his team have developed a platform that uses data and technology to help farmers maximize their income, access financial services and connect with customers. Aquaconnect is a compelling example of how financial services that are integrated with popular platforms can empower small businesses and enhance their owners’ livelihoods, reflecting the importance of embedded finance as an investment thesis for Flourish.”

 

Funds will be used to strengthen their

AgroPolicy, Foodgrains

Rs 11,141.28 crores has been paid to the farmers as MSP in Uttar Pradesh

During the current Rabi Marketing Season (RMS) 2021-22, a record quantity of 56.41 lakh metric tonnes of wheat was procured from 12.98 lakh farmers at Minimum Support Price (MSP) in Uttar Pradesh. This is the highest ever procurement of wheat in the history of the state. A total of Rs 11,141.28 crores has been paid to the farmers as MSP. There is an increase of 58 per cent from RMS 2020-21 during which 35.77 lakh metric tonnes of wheat was procured from 6.64 lakh farmers.

It may be noted that the current marketing season of RMS 2021-22 has concluded in most of the wheat procuring states and up to July 8, 2021, a quantity of 433.32 LMT of wheat has been procured (which is an all-time high, as it has exceeded previous high 389.92 LMT of RMS 2020-21) against the last year corresponding purchase of 387.50 LMT. About 49.16 lakh farmers have already been benefitted from the ongoing RMS procurement operations with an MSP value of Rs 85,581.02 crore.

Paddy procurement in the ongoing season Kharif 2020-21 is also continuing smoothly in the procuring States with the purchase of 866.05 LMTs of paddy (includes Kharif Crop 707.59 LMT and Rabi Crop 158.46 LMT) up to July 8, 2021, against last year corresponding purchase of 756.80 LMT.  

Rs 11,141.28 crores has been paid to

AgroPolicy, Floriculture

Dr Mande express satisfaction over the adoption of lavender farming that has brought substantial enhancement in income and employment generation for farmers

Dr Shekhar C Mande, Director General, CSIR and Secretary, DSIR, recently visited the CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine’s (CSIR-IIIM) Branch Lab in Srinagar and the Institute’s Field Station in Pulwama and took stock of the ongoing activities. Interacting with the women self-help groups and entrepreneurs associated with lavender farming, Dr Mande expressed satisfaction that the adoption of lavender farming has brought a substantial enhancement in their income and employment generation. 

 

Dr Mande assured the farmers and entrepreneurs that scientific and technological advisory and support would be provided for further expansion of the crop, its processing, value addition and marketing to achieve self-sufficiency. He further emphasised the need for integration of apiary with aromatic crop production for maximising farm productivity and profitability. 

 

Dr D Srinivasa Reddy, Director CSIR-IIIM, Jammu, while highlighting the significance of the Field Station, Pulwama informed that the station had been the epicentre of industrial farming, especially lavender for enhancing farmers income and women empowerment in the Union Territory of J&K. He also informed that CSIR-IIIM, intends to extend the different industry-oriented crops on a mass scale for the production of value-added products and other raw materials.

 

Dr Shahid Rasool, Scientist In-charge of Bonera Farm in Pulwama, informed that a sustained approach through different projects, mission programmes, practical training and skill for producing and processing different crops are imparted. Farmers are hand-held for the commercial production of different crops through the supply of free quality planting, facilities for distillation of the harvested crop produce, market linkages and technical advisory.

 

DG, CSIR and the Director CSIR-IIIM met Manoj Sinha, Lt Governor of J&K and apprised him about the introduction of lavender and other high-value cash crops by CSIR in J&K. The DG-CSIR also informed the Lt Governor about the other CSIR S&T initiatives in J&K and offered implementation of the CSIR Technologies relevant to the J&K especially for societal development and rural empowerment. 

 

 The Lt Governor appreciated the CSIR initiatives and also emphasised on scientific and industrial training of the talented youths of J&K. The Lt Governor desired that the information with regards to all the readily available technologies of CSIR may be shared with the J&K UT Government to have further brainstorming to explore possibilities of their implementation.

 

For more than 35 years, CSIR-IIIM has been carrying out R&D studies on Lavender’s agro- and processing technologies for achieving higher productivity and quality indices. A high oil yielding variety known as RRL-12 was developed by CSIR-IIIM. The institute has been carrying out several State and Centrally sponsored mission mode projects like CSIR-Aroma Mission for mass scale cultivation of the crop. It is reported that the farmers cultivating lavender achieve five to six folds more income (Rs 4.00 – 5.00 lakh per hectare) than the traditional crops. The lavender crop cultivation area in the UT has seen a surge in the past ten years due to various initiatives taken and implemented by CSIR-IIIM, Jammu. 

 

Lavender is being grown in J&K over an estimated area of 900 acres with an annual production of 3000 kgs of lavender oil. The institute is upscaling the acreage under the crop. It intends to cover an area of 1500 hectares in the next two to three years for achieving a sustainable production regime to meet the increasing demand for lavender oil nationally and internationally.

Dr Mande express satisfaction over the adoption

AgroPolicy, Agrotech

Strengthen export linkage of farmer cooperatives and FPOs

Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED). According to the MoU, the key areas of cooperation include facilitating APEDA registered exporters getting assistance under all the Government of India schemes implemented through NAFED. The MoU also envisages ensuring sustainability and growth of exports by cooperatives by addressing issues such as technology, skill, quality products and market access.

The collaborations between APEDA, which functions under the Ministry of Commerce & NAFED, registered under the Multi-State Co-operative Societies Act, also support engaging cooperatives involved in agricultural production for improving the quality of agri-produce and its consolidation for better price realisation to the farmers. APEDA would facilitate exports by the cooperatives, FPO’s, partners and associates identified and promoted by NAFED.

APEDA and NAFED will also facilitate the participation of Farmers’ Cooperatives in global trade including B2B & B2C fairs to be organised in India and abroad and also to mutually cooperate in international business development & promotions.

The MoU also entails assisting with capacity building of Cooperative Societies, Self-Help Groups (SHGs) for their social and environmental compliances and skilling as per international standards. Both the organisations would organise awareness programmes skill development programmes and workshops at regional, state and national levels.

APEDA and NAFED have also agreed to work in close coordination towards sustainable cluster development of the clusters in various states notified under Agri export policy.

The MoU was signed by Dr M Angamuthu, Chairman, APEDA and Sanjeev Kumar Chadha, MD, NAFED. The MoU was signed for utilising both the organisations’ expertise by mutually working together to synergise the activities in the interest of agriculture and allied sectors for bringing better value to the stakeholders.

At present, NAFED is creating a network of honey FPOs across Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Around 65 FPOs will be part of the honey corridor linking northwest to north-eastern regions. NAFED is aiming at bringing all the FPOs associated with honey production for creating requisite infrastructure under the National Beekeeping and Honey Mission, NAFED’s subsidiary Federation of Indian FPOs and Aggregators (FIFA) is currently partnering with FPOs and the private sector.

Strengthen export linkage of farmer cooperatives and

Acquaculture, Live Stock, Start ups

The brand would be strengthening its presence in Bengaluru with addition of more stores in the coming months across different neighbourhoods.

 Chennai-based start-up TenderCuts, India’s first omni-channel and tech-driven fresh meat and seafood company, sets foot in Bengaluru with the launch of its offline stores and online delivery.

Currently, the residents in vicinities of JP Nagar, Koramangala and HSR Layout would be the first group of privileged customers to have an exciting purchasing experience of buying meat and seafood from an organized retail store, as this would be the first organized meat and seafood retail store in Bengaluru.The brand would be strengthening its presence in Bengaluru with addition of more stores in the coming months across different neighbourhoods.

Commenting on this milestone, Nishanth Chandran, Founder & CEO at TenderCuts stated, “Since our first launch in Chennai in 2016, our experience has been nothing short of extraordinary. We are humbled by the response we have received from our customers, which has helped us to grow and become as one of the most preferred brand for purchase of hygienic meat and seafood. With our expertise as the market leader in Hyderabad and Chennai, TenderCuts takes a leap ahead into the Bangalore market with constant passion towards delivering the highest quality of fresh meat and seafood.”

In continuation to its steady growth of expansion, TenderCuts has recently raised Rs 110 crore ($15 million) in a round led by Paragon Partners, a mid-market PE fund with participation from NABVENTURES, an agri-food tech VC fund backed by NABARD. In addition to the capital received from NABARD, TenderCuts also leverages NABARD’s network of over 5000 plus farmer producer organisations which includes over 1 million farmers, which helps TenderCuts to augment its supply chain, by establishing direct partnerships with local farming and fishing communities and strong backward links to guarantee absolute freshness.

The brand would be strengthening its presence

AgroPolicy, Environment

Choubey before assuming charge, planted a tree sapling at the premises of Environment Ministry

Ashwini Kumar Choubey has assumed his charge as Minister of State (MoS) of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in New Delhi. He was welcomed by Secretary, Ministry of Environment, RP Gupta and other senior officials of the Ministry.

Choubey before assuming charge, planted a tree sapling at the premises of Environment Ministry.

Speaking with the media on the occasion, the Minister thanked the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for giving the responsibility and said that in the last seven years the Environment Ministry has done many unprecedented works and emphasised that increasing the forest cover further would be a priority area.

Choubey before assuming charge, planted a tree

Agrotech, IT

The computer application developed by the researchers using a complex computational model can detect blight in potato leaf images

Scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mandi, have developed a computational model for automated disease detection in potato crops using photographs of its leaves. The research led by Dr Srikant Srinivasan, Associate Professor, School of Computing and Electrical Engineering, IIT Mandi, in collaboration with the Central Potato Research Institute, Shimla, uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to highlight the diseased portions of the leaf.

 

Funded by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, the results of this research have recently been published in the journal Plant Phenomics, in a paper co-authored by Dr Srikant Srinivasan and Dr Shyam K Masakapalli along with research scholars, Joe Johnson, and Geetanjali Sharma, from IIT Mandi, and Dr Vijay Kumar Dua, Dr Sanjeev Sharma, and Dr Jagdev Sharma, from Central Potato Research Institute, Shimla.

 

The Blight is a common disease of the potato plant, that starts as uneven light green lesions near the tip and the margins of the leaf and then spreads into large brown to purplish-black necrotic patches that eventually lead to rotting of the plant. 

 

The advanced HD cameras, better computing power and communication avenues offered by smartphones offer a promising platform for automated disease detection in crops, which can save time and help in the timely management of diseases, in cases of outbreaks.

 

The computational tool developed by the IIT Mandi scientists can detect blight in potato leaf images. The model is built using an AI tool called mask region-based convolutional neural network architecture and can accurately highlight the diseased portions of the leaf amid a complex background of plant and soil matter.

 

In order to develop a robust model, healthy and diseased leaf data were collected from fields across Punjab, UP and Himachal Pradesh. It was important that the model developed should have portability across the nation.

 

“Analysis of the detection performance indicates an overall precision of 98 per cent on leaf images in field environments,” said Dr Srinivasan.

 

Following this success, the team is sizing down the model to a few tens of megabytes so that it can be hosted on a smartphone as an application. With this, when the farmer will photograph the leaf which appears unhealthy, the application will confirm in real-time if the leaf is infected or not. With this timely knowledge, the farmer would know exactly when to spray the field, saving his produce and minimising costs associated with unnecessary use of fungicides.

 

“The model is being refined as more states are covered,” added Dr Srinivasan and highlighted that it would be deployed as part of the FarmerZone app that will be available to potato farmers for free.

 

The computer application developed by the researchers

Environment, Sustainable Energy, Water

Columbine Vineyard’s new Sustainably Grown certification focuses on three areas of responsibility: environmental stewardship, social responsibility and economic stability

Columbine Vineyards, producer of the Holiday table grapes in California’s San Joaquin Valley, has now become the first Sustainably Grown Certified table grapes producer in the US. The new certification represents the significant impacts Columbine Vineyards has made over the past few years, including water conservation – 843 million gallons saved, styrofoam reduction – 54 per cent reduction, and carbon sequestration – 5,200 metric tons, the equivalent to 1140 cars off the roads annually. The official certification comes through SCS Global, a pioneer and leader in the field of sustainability standards and third-party certification.

 

The SCS Sustainably Grown certification programme is one of the world’s most strict, with standards and initiatives that provide a framework for environmental stewardship and social responsibility. As a result of certification, all of Columbine’s grape brands, including Holiday grapes, will now carry the SCS Kingfisher Sustainably Grown certification mark.

 

Columbine Vineyard’s new Sustainably Grown certification focuses on three areas of responsibility: environmental stewardship, social responsibility and economic stability. The certification comes just ahead of the Holiday grapes’ highly-anticipated 2021 season, which returns late August through December. 

Columbine Vineyard’s new Sustainably Grown certification focuses

Acquaculture, Agro Universities, R&D

The tie up will help provide respite from the parasitic outbreak in the inland fisheries and aquaculture

The ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute, Barrackpore, Kolkata has signed the Technology Transfer License Agreement of ICAR-CIFRI ARGCURE with the Glaucus Agrochem.

 

Dr Joykrushna Jena, Deputy Director General (Fisheries Science), ICAR stated that the ICAR-CIFRI ARGCURE will surely provide respite from the parasitic outbreak in the inland fisheries and aquaculture.

 

Dr BK Das, Director, ICAR-CIFRI, Barrackpore and Sariful Islam, MD, Glaucus Agrochem, Kolkata signed the agreement on the behalf of their respective organisations. He emphasised that after the three successful commercialised technologies namely – ICAR-CIFRI GI CAGE, ICAR-CIFRI PEN HDPE and ICAR-CIFRI Cagegrow Fish Feed, this is the fourth technology that is going to be commercialised by the institute.

 

As per the Technology Commercialisation Guidelines of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research, the commercialisation of ICAR-CIFRI ARGCURE Technology has been facilitated by Agrinnovate India (a Government of India Enterprises).

 

The ICAR-CIFRI has developed an innovative product- ICAR-CIFRI ARGCURE using a polymeric nanomicelles approach. The experimental results show that the technology is effective in controlling the fish parasite Argulus bengalensis at a low dose as compared to the conventional formulations.

 

The technology’s application results in the disruption of the hatching process of the parasite. The field evaluations depicted that it performed well in the field conditions and retained the water bodies’ parasite-free for a longer time duration.

 

The present innovation is directed towards better performance of anti-parasitic molecules against fish parasites through nano-technological interventions and to improve food and environment safety through lowering the anti-parasite application dose.

 

 

The tie up will help provide respite

Environment, Sustainable Energy

Receives 250 + registrations from 10 countries

Envirocare Green Awards (EGA) will be held on a digital platform on July 16, 2021. EGA has received 250 + registrations from 10 countries including India, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Iraq, South Africa, Ghana, Algeria, Turkey, Kiribati and Nepal.  

 

Envirocare Green Awards (EGA) is conferred to those who strive to protect the environment by adopting or innovating measures that help create a sustainable environment. The initiative was started by Envirocare Labs in 2018 to appreciate and motivate professionals and organisations.

 

Envirocare Green Awards has received an overwhelming response with 60+ applications from six countries including India, Nepal, Nigeria, Singapore, the UK and Egypt. The applications underwent a three-level screening, a preliminary screening was conducted by the EGA secretariat team. This was further evaluated in terms of the initiative’s significance pertaining to the planet, people and profit.

 

The jury members had an esteemed panel from six countries including India, the US, Germany, Netherlands, the Middle East and Nigeria. Dr Amar Supate, Dr Rashneh Pardiwala, Dr Avin Ramaya, Benedict Odjobo, Dr Sarit Kumar Das, Karin Heinze, Dr Vaibhav Tidke, Imran Ustad, Dr SK Tyagi, Nilesh Korgaonkar and Dr Dyanesh Darshane have played a pivotal role in evaluating the 61 applicants. 21 applicants who had done a phenomenal job towards environment and sustainability were shortlisted and further evaluated on July 10.

 

The applicants were allocated slots to present their work and talk on their concept in terms of creativity and innovation, impact and sustainability and scalability of their initiatives during a three-hour session. The panel members appreciated the organisers for conducting the session in a wonderful manner and also congratulated Dr Nilesh Amritkar on his vision and commendable efforts taken by him towards bringing everyone and motivating all key stakeholders towards sustainability. 

 

Dr Prabodh Halde – Head Regulatory (Marico) appreciated the work done by all applicants and mentioned that selecting the top five would be a really tough job for the jury and patrons. The applicants too expressed their happiness in being given an opportunity to showcase the work on the international platform. Karin Heinze a journalist and our jury member from Germany expressed her gratitude for being a part of such an event and to listen to the work that was being done by all these applicants. 

     

Envirocare recently planted 100 trees via a foundation in a tribal area in Viluppuram, Tamil Nadu, honouring the jury, patrons applicants and EGA secretariat members. The Member Secretary of Goa State Biodiversity Board, Dr Pradip Sarmokadam extended his hand towards this initiative and offered help to anyone in planting trees in the Goa region. 

Receives 250 + registrations from 10 countries

Agrotech, Start ups

GreenSat Innovation App will offer end-to-end support that extends from precision farming to banking, market linkages, and innovative crop insurance products

Agritech company GreenSat Innovation Labs has signed an MoU with Gramin Vikas Trust (GVT), a rural welfare organisation and IndiaHub e-Governance, an innovation-driven start-up, as a technology partner for  Smart FPO (Farmer Producer Organisation) initiative.

Under the initiative, the GreenSat Innovation App will offer end-to-end support that extends from precision farming to banking, market linkages, and innovative crop insurance products. In addition, it will offer direct access to National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) wherein the latter will offer a commodity trading platform for the bigger FPOs, providing farmers with direct access to the market.

The targeted project size for the first year (2021-22) is 100 FPOs with 500 FPOs planned for each successive year. More than 10,000 farmers have already signed up for the project with an additional 5,00,000 farmers expected to be on-boarded by March 2022.

Speaking about the initiative, Deepak Yadav, Founder, GreenSat Innovation Labs, said, “At GreenSat, our focus has been on utilising the power of technology and data to offer innovative solutions to our farmers. We believe that technology is the game-changer that can revolutionise agriculture, removing bottlenecks that have crippled the sector for decades. This partnership is the result of our determination to offer complete end-to-end solutions for farmers where they can find information, finance, insurance cover, and a market for their products. We are glad that Gramin Vikas Trust (GVT) picked us as their partner for this project with their proven track record in successfully implementing rural welfare projects. IndiaHub shares our passion for utilising technology to bring sustainable solutions for farmers.”

 Co-curated by GreenSat Innovation Labs, the initiative is aimed at developing an Atmanirbhar Kisan – Smart FPO model to offer low-cost user-friendly technology to address the four major challenges faced by most farmers today, namely, crop management, gathering funds, ensuring adequate insurance cover, and market linkages for sales. These challenges will be addressed through two of GreenSat’s innovative tech-based solutions, namely, precision farming services and its faceless agri-banker concept.

GreenSat Innovation App will offer end-to-end support

Acquaculture, AgroPolicy

500 fish farmers, fisherfolks, professionals, officials and scientists from across the nation participated in the virtual event

The National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB) recently celebrated National Fish Farmers Day virtually. The National Fish Farmers Day is observed every year to demonstrate solidarity with all fisherfolk, fish farmers and concerned stakeholders throughout the country. The annual event is celebrated to commemorate Professor Dr Hiralal Chaudhury and his colleague Dr Alikunhi for their contribution in achieving the successful induced breeding of major carps on July 10, 1957, at Angul in Odisha for the first time in the country. The pioneering work of induced breeding over the years has transformed the growth of the aquaculture sector from traditional to intensive aquaculture practices and led to the success of the modern aquaculture industry. The day was also celebrated as NFDB Foundation Day.

Union Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Parshottam Rupala and L Murugan, Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Jatindra Nath Swain, Secretary (Fisheries), Dr C Suvarna, Chief Executive, NFDB, Dr J. Balaji, Joint Secretary (Marine) and Sagar Mehra, Joint Secretary (Inland) and other officers of Department of Fisheries, GoI and NFDB have participated in the programme.

During the programme, Union Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying had launched the Jingles on Domestic Fish Consumption and Announced the ’Taglines /Slogan Contest Winners’ on domestic fish consumption. The launch was followed by interaction with fish farmers/entrepreneurs who benefitted under PMMSY and NFDB schemes, from different states.

Speaking on the occasion, the Union Minister stated that India is benefitted from a vast coastline on three sides with a huge potential for the fisheries sector. Realising the importance of the sector, the government has launched the PMMSY. Under the scheme, financial assistance is provided to fishers/fish farmers for fish farming, the creation of infrastructure facilities, seed and feed procurement, fishing activity along training for its proper implementation. The Union Minister also stated that we should ensure grounding of the various schemes launched by the government and the schemes should be able to reach the last fishermen and also informed that we have to take a stock of the situation whether there are any problems in reaching the schemes to fishers/fish farmers. He stated that there is a need to increase the awareness of KCC among fishers and fish farmers. Union Minister congratulated NFDB for celebrating the day as 15th NFDB Foundation Day. He stated that NFDB should make efforts to take schemes much closer to the fishers/fish farmers.

Murugan stated that with the growing population there is demand for nutritional security and fish is an excellent source for meeting this requirement. He stated that the PMMSY scheme will boost fish production definitely and transform the life of fishers. He stated that various research institutes are developing innovative technologies for increasing fish production and productivity.

NFFBB, Bhubaneswar is contributing to quality fish seed production in the country through the supply of genetically improved fish varieties such as Jayanti Rohu, Improved Catla and Amur Carp. He urged that research institutes should develop new technologies for breeding different fish varieties.

The Union Minister interacted with progressive fish farmers who have taken up activities such as new pond development, fish hatcheries, kiosks, entrepreneurs, ornamental fisheries, seed rearing and new technology infusion such as Bio-floc which has proven to be helpful eco-friendly in improving fish production and profitability to the farmers.

Farmers expressed that the Bio-floc culture system has helped in producing more fish with less water and also with less feed requirement by converting the nutrients into food for the fish.

Around 500 fish farmers, fisherfolks, professionals, officials and scientists from across the nation participated in the event.

 

500 fish farmers, fisherfolks, professionals, officials and

AgroPolicy, Agrotech, Sustainable Energy

Emphasises on importance of alternate biofuels for diversification of agriculture towards the energy and power sector

Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari has emphasised the importance of alternate biofuels for diversification of agriculture towards the energy and power sector. Inaugurating the country’s first LNG Facility plant at Nagpur he said in our economy we are spending Rs 8 lakh crores for the import of petrol diesel and petroleum products which is a big challenge.

Gadkari said, “We have designed a policy that encourages the development of imports to substitute cost-effective pollution-free and indigenous ethanol, bio CNG, LNG and hydrogen fuels. He said the ministry is constantly working on different alternative fuels. He said we have to use the surplus in rice, corn and sugar to prevent them from going waste.”

 

Emphasises on importance of alternate biofuels for

AgroPolicy, Agrotech

Farmers were provided technical inputs to boost the agri-exports from eastern Uttar Pradesh

APEDA in collaboration with Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), traders, exporters, agricultural scientists, the Uttar Pradesh government and other institutions recently organised a meet at Varanasi.

More than 200 farmers from the Varanasi region participated in the meet where agricultural scientists and officials from the leading institutes provided valuable inputs for promoting agricultural products exports from the region as well as adherence to globally recognised Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) by farmers.

Farmers were provided technical inputs on GAP implementation, ensuring pest-free cultivation, diseases identifications in fresh fruits and vegetables, plant quarantine, and strategy to boost the agri-exports from eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Agricultural scientists and officials from leading institutes including ICAR-Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture, ICAR – Indian Institute of Soil Science, ICAR – Indian Institute of Vegetable Research, IRRI – South Asia Regional Centre, Narendra Dev University of Agriculture & Technology, Krishi Vigyan Kendras (Jaunpur, Varanasi, Ghazipur and Chandauli) and Uttar Pradesh State Agriculture and Horticulture departments participated in the meet.

Senior officials from NABARD, NAFED, SFAC, BALMER LAWRIE & other institutions familiarised the farmers, the FPOs and exporters who participated in the meet, with their respective departmental schemes.

A special session was organised on the export of banana, wherein the representative from APEDA registered exporter briefed participants about the banana processing.

The event at Varanasi was part of a series of events being organised on the 75th Year of Independence, where the government has taken an initiative under the banner of ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’. This is an initiative to celebrate and commemorate 75 years of progressive India and the glorious history of its people, culture and achievements.

APEDA is working very closely with all the stakeholders with the objective to export India’s agricultural produce to the global market. A presentation was made on assistance provided by APEDA in boosting agri-exports from the Varanasi region.

Farmers were provided technical inputs to boost