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Interaction, IT

The event to be held till December 15 is set to boost a global dialogue on strengthening the policy framework and international business potentials

The Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ASSOCHAM) in association with the Department of Science & Technology of India, GoI, Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM) has announced the 2nd edition of SMARTecIndia 2021. The event will be held till December 15, 2021. In a bid to provide a necessary boost to the smart technologies sector and boost global dialogue on strengthening the policy framework, international business potentials, etc. ASSOCHAM, DST& KDEM has joined hands to make a mark in the global smart technology ecosystem.  

 

The Guest of Honour Dr CN Ashwath Narayan, Minister for Electronics, IT, Bt and S&T, Higher Education, Skill Development, Entrepreneurship & Livelihood, Government of Karnataka, addressed the audience on Bengaluru being the Gateway in Global Tech Advancements along with the state’s contribution to the country’s digital economy and growth. 

  

Among others to address the inaugural session of this prestigious event were Sindhu Gangadharan, SVP & MD, SAP Labs India & Head, AP User Enablement, Rajesh Agrawal, Deputy Mayor of London for Business, UK, Takashi Suzuki, Director General, Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) and Dr Omkar Rai, Director General, Software Technology Parks of India. 

  

Speaking on the occasion, BV Naidu, Chairman of SMARTecIndia2021, Chairman, ASSOCHAM SRDC & KSDC, Managing Manager, StartupXseed Ventures, Founder and Chairman, The Gain said, “The country has around 60,000 startups and with an average age of 28 years of the founders of these startups. Nowhere in the world, such numbers of entrepreneurs are there. That happens only in India.” 

 

Dr CN Ashwath Narayan, Minister of Electronics, IT, BT, and S&T, and minister for Higher Education, Skill Development, Government of Karnataka said “Moving forward we need to make use of any opportunities you have to us. We need to facilitate there’s a huge potential and scope for the growth of the innovation and technology and entrepreneurship for this to become more on much more successful, we need to come with many of the facilitating factors.” 

 

 

Event Partner ISG announced the launch of ISG Pay, #SmartMerchant an all-in-one mobile payments app with a mission to reach every last mile of merchants across India. The app was launched by Ranjeet Jaiswal, SVP Business Head, In-Solutions Global.

  

The ASSOCHAM 2nd Innovators’ Excellence Awards 2021 was bagged by L&T Technologies Services for Innovation in Overall Customer Experience, In Solutions Global for Best Process Innovation, Apeiron Techno Venture for Innovation in Service Sector, Blu Cocoon for Innovation in Environment and Sustainability, Tirupati Group for Innovation in CSR Initiatives and Smentor Solutions for Best Innovation by an SME. 

 

The event to be held till December

AgroPolicy, Supply Chain, Trade

Secretary, Department of Food and Public Distribution, Sudhanshu Pandey inspects paddy procurement centre at Kardha in Bhandara district

The Secretary, Department of Food and Public Distribution, Sudhanshu Pandey during his recent visit to Maharashtra inspected the paddy procurement centre at Kardha in Bhandara district to oversee the paddy procurement being done in the state.

Senior Officers of Food Corporation of India (FCI), Maharashtra State Government, and procuring agencies accompanied him during this visit. He advised the state government authorities to improve upon the infrastructure at the procurement centres. He also interacted with the farmers at the centre and encouraged them to avail the benefits of various schemes of the Centre. It was also informed that a new testing method of rice has been introduced by the Government of India to know the age of the rice which would encourage paddy procurement and help the farmers.

The Secretary, Food visited a Fair Price Shop (FPS) at Kardha where he interacted with the FPS owner and some PDS beneficiaries. He expressed satisfaction over the system of issuing Ration under NFSA (National Food Security Act) and PM-GKAY (Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana).

The Secretary of Food emphasised to give impetus on setting up fortified rice manufacturing plants especially in and around paddy procuring districts of Gondia, Bhandara, Chandrapur.

He emphasised promoting solvent extraction plants for manufacturing rice bran oil in the procuring districts. He advised the Government of Maharashtra to work on crop diversification especially the production of Millets as the year 2023 is being declared as the International Year of Millets by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. He further emphasised putting up grain-based distilleries for the production of ethanol and thereby promoting maize cultivation.

Secretary, Department of Food and Public Distribution,

AgroPolicy, Agrotech, Trade

An Memorandum of Understanding was signed between leading exporters-association and FPOs of Purvanchal region

APEDA recently organised ‘Agri-Export Conference cum Buyer Seller Meet’ at Mirzapur, where Union Minister of State of Commerce and Industry, Anupriya Patel and more than 700 farmers, exporters and farmers attended the conference. The conference was held to harness agricultural and processed food products exports potential from eastern Uttar Pradesh also referred to as Purvanchal.

 

Patel said that the country has set a $400 billion target for merchandise exports for 2021-22 and $262 billion of exports has already been achieved during April-November 2021-22 period. She said that a record export target of $43 billion has been set for agricultural products in 2021-22 and because of efforts by APEDA and farmers, this target would be achieved in the current fiscal.

 

Dr M Angamuthu, Chairman, APEDA spoke about the initiatives taken by APEDA for boosting exports from the Purvanchal region. Praveen Kumar Lakskar, District Magistrate, Mirzapur attended the meet as Chief Guest. 

 

During the conference, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between leading exporters-association and FPOs of Purvanchal region for increasing agricultural products exports. Export consignments of Non-Basmati Rice to China and Green chillies to the UAE were flagged off by Anupriya Patel and Dr Angamuthu, Chairman APEDA.

 

Senior officials from the Uttar Pradesh government, Mirzapur district administration, APEDA, International Rice Research Institute, ICAR-India Institute of Vegetable Research and representatives of exporters associations, Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) and other stakeholders attended the meeting.

 

Farmers mostly from the Mirzapur, Bhadohi, Varanasi, Ghazipur and Chandauli districts attended the conference.

An Memorandum of Understanding was signed between

Agro chems – Chemicals, Agro chems – Pesticides, Environment

The new combination is effective against fungal plant diseases and ensures long-lasting, weather-protected and environment-friendly disease control

Best Agrolife Limited (BAL) has been granted registration for indigenous manufacturing of Tebuconazole 50 per cent + Trifloxystrobin 25 per cent WG, a vital combination of Trifloxystrobin, by Central Insecticides Board & Registration Committee (CIB&RC) recently. BAL will become the first Indian agrochemical company to manufacture Tebuconazole 50 per cent + Trifloxystrobin 25 per cent in India.

The company is already having the indigenous registration of Trifloxystrobin Technical and Tebuconazole Technical in India. The latest Trifloxystrobin combination provides broad-spectrum control against fungal plant diseases and ensures long-lasting, weather-protected and environment-friendly disease control. Apart from restricting Sheath blight, Leaf, Neck Blast and Glume discolouration on rice it also limits the growth of Early blight on tomato, powdery mildew on grapes, wheat, mango, and chilli, Antrancose, Alternaria leaf spot on chilli, yellow rust on wheat and Anthracnose on mango.

Trifloxystrobin and its combinations have huge potential in not only the domestic but global markets of North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America Middle East and Africa as well.

Vimal Alawadhi, MD, Best Agrolife, disclosed that the company is working on some other even better novel and proprietary combinations of Trifloxystrobin which will be launched shortly to provide highly effective and one-shot solution to control various pathogens together on different crops.

The new combination is effective against fungal

AgroPolicy, Supply Chain, Trade

The exports of products under APEDA basket grew to $13,261 million in April-November, 2021-22 compared to $11,671 million in April-November, 2020-21

India’s exports of Agricultural and Processed Food products rose by more than 13 per cent in terms of dollar in the first eight months of the current fiscal (April-November, 2021-22) compared to the same period of the previous year. 

 

The export of products under the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) ambit increased from $11,671 million in April-November 2020-21 to $13,261 million in April-November 2021-22.

 

The target for exports under APEDA basket products has been fixed at $23,713 million in 2021-22.

 

The export of rice was the top forex earner at $5937 million during April-November 2021-22, growing 11 per cent over the corresponding period in 2020-21 when it touched USD 5,341 million. Meat, dairy and poultry products exports grew 12 per cent standing at USD 2665 million in April-November 2021-22 compared to $2371 million in the corresponding eight-month period of 2020-21. Fruits and vegetables exports were up by 12 per cent to touch $1720 million during April-November 2021-22 against $1536 million in April-November 2020-21.

 

Exports of cereal preparations and miscellaneous processed items grew by 26 per cent during April-November 2021-22 to touch $1418 million against $1127 million in April-November, 2020-21. The cashew exports also grew by 29 per cent to $302 million in the first eight months of the current fiscal compared to the same period the previous year.

 

The exports of oil meals declined by 12 per cent to $626 million in April-November, 2021-22, compared to the same period in 2020-21. The significant rise in agri-exports is seen as a testimony of the government’s commitment to increase farmers’ income through giving thrust on boosting exports of agricultural and processed food products of the country.

 

“We continue to focus on creating infrastructure for boosting exports by focusing on clusters in collaboration with state governments while taking into consideration the objective of Agriculture Export Policy, 2018,” Dr M Angamuthu, Chairman, APEDA, said.

The exports of products under APEDA basket

Supply Chain, Trade

NAFED connected with the FPOs in Ziro, Arunachal Pradesh

AgNext Technologies has partnered with NAFED in a first-of-its-kind initiative to digitise quality assessment for Arunachal Pradesh’s organic kiwis. These organic kiwis were launched in New Delhi last week by Arunachal Pradesh Agriculture Marketing Board (APAMB) along with NAFED as the marketing partner, under the national ‘One district One Product’ scheme.

This is the first time in India, an AI-based technology is being used for rapid quality assessment of organic kiwi. Through its quality monitoring platform ‘Qualix’, AgNext also enabled deep-tech based comprehensive traceability. Using QR code mapping, the end-consumers can trace all the steps in the supply chain down to the origin.

Taranjeet Singh Bhamra, CEO & Founder, AgNextsaid, “Till date, over 6000 kgs of kiwi has been assessed and moved through our ‘Qualix’ platform, with proven benefits for the farmers, NAFED and the end-consumers. The impact of facilitating quality-based and traceability-enabled trade for kiwis will not only improve domestic demand but also help in boosting export potential of the fruit.”

Subrat Panda, Chief Technology Officer, AgNext explained the various intersections where technological deployment helped to bring about the traceability solution to the end-consumer. Panda said, “NAFED connected us with the FPOs in Ziro, Arunachal Pradesh and we deployed our quality assessment solution right at the procurement centre to measure the total soluble sugar (TSS), which is the key parameter to ascertain the ripeness of Kiwi. During the packaging process for retail distribution, each box of kiwis was labelled with a QR code through which one can access the complete inspection report along with key traceability and quality parameters. The entire process is automated and led by an integrated AI-based system which significantly reduces the TAT for quality testing, logistics and marketing of the fruit.”

Pankaj Prasad, Additional MD, NAFED, said, “NAFED has successfully partnered with FPOs in Ziro, Arunachal Pradesh to help them create better market linkages for their certified organic kiwis. Digitised quality assessment helps to streamline the inspection process of the fruit, giving end-consumers a complete traceability report. This empowers both farmers and consumers, resulting in better price realisations, and also builds greater trust and transparency among all the stakeholders in the value chain. It is essential to increase adoption of technology to truly capitalise on the potential of Indian agriculture, boost farmer income and enable quality-based trade.”

NAFED connected with the FPOs in Ziro,

Agro Universities, AgroPolicy

The event held at Krishi Bhawan discuss ways to upgrade agri universities

Agricultural Education Day – 2021 was recently held at Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi. Kailash Choudhary, Union Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare highlighted that agricultural education and start-ups have been given more emphasis in the New Education Policy – 2020. He said that the students should be given an opportunity to opt for subjects of their choice.

The minister stated that the main objective of celebrating the day is to expose students to the various facets and relevance of agriculture in the country’s development and encourage them towards the agricultural sector. He said that attracting the students towards agriculture will encourage them to become agri-entrepreneurs in the future.

Dr Trilochan Mohapatra, Secretary (DARE) & Director General (ICAR) briefed about the initiation of Rankings of Agricultural Universities by the Council since 2017. The Director-General stressed the inclusion of improved curriculum in the Universities that will enable the students to be self-employed. Dr Mohapatra regarded enriched agricultural education as the backbone for the successful agricultural sector of the country.

Sanjay Garg, Additional Secretary (DARE) & Secretary (ICAR) regarded Modern Agricultural Education as the backbone of the successful agricultural sector in the country. Garg outlined the release of the ranking of 67 universities by the minister during the event. He also highlighted the up-gradation of 79 courses in agricultural universities. He also emphasised that the university’s rankings will help the students to select the universities for their careers.

Proposing the vote of thanks, Dr RC Agrawal, Deputy Director General (Agricultural Education), ICAR regarded the National Education Policy – 2020 as the First Education Policy of the 21st Century that aims at addressing the growing developmental imperatives of the country. Dr Agrawal stated that the policy proposes the revision and revamping of all aspects of the education structure, including its regulation and governance, to create a new system that is aligned with the aspirational goals of 21st Century Education.

The vice-chancellors of state agricultural universities; deputy directors-general, assistant directors-general, directors and senior officials of ICAR Headquarters and ICAR institutes also participated in the event. The Council declared December 3 as the ’Agricultural Education Day’ in 2016 to commemorate the Birth Anniversary of Dr Rajendra Prasad, the First President and Union Agriculture Minister of India.

The event held at Krishi Bhawan discuss

Finance, Schemes - NABARD

It aims to synergise the activities of allied sectors for bringing better value to the stakeholders.

APEDA has been focusing on a collaborative approach to bring synergy with a number of organizations and institutions having inherent professional and specialized expertise in different areas for capacity building of various stakeholders and providing solutions for addressing some of the identified interventions for the development of Agriculture and its export enhancement, in consonance with the objectives set under Agri Export Policy announced by Government of India.

The Agriculture Export Policy was framed with a focus on agriculture export-oriented production, export promotion, better price realisation to farmer and synchronisation within policies and programs of the Government of India. It focuses on ‘Farmers’ Centric Approach for improved income through value addition at the source itself to help minimise losses across the value chain. Policy, therefore, suggests to adopt the approach of developing product-specific clusters in different agro climatic zones of the country to help in dealing with various supply side issues viz., soil nutrients management, higher productivity, adoption of a market-oriented variety of crop, use of Good Agriculture Practices etc.

APEDA and NABARD have signed MoU at their respective Head offices through online virtual mode to utilise their expertise by mutually working together to synergise the activities in the interest of agriculture and allied sectors for bringing better value to the stakeholders.

National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is established as a development bank for providing credit for promotion of agriculture, small scale, cottage and village industries, handicrafts and other allied activities in rural areas, with a view to promote integrated rural development and securing prosperity of the rural areas and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

It aims to synergise the activities of

Agrotech, R&D, Seeds

With this acquisition, Crystal Crop Protection is expected to increase its footprints in the Indian seed market

Crystal Crop Protection, a leading R&D-focussed crop solutions company, completed the acquisition of the seeds business of Bayer in India, comprising cotton, mustard, pearl millet and grain sorghum hybrids. With this acquisition, the company is expected to be among the leading companies in these selected crops.

The acquisition comes with prestigious brands Proagro & Surpass, associated breeding programmes, a talented team of incredible know-how, technology, IP, research farms and a strong pipeline of products that will put Crystal in a fast growth trajectory in seed business by expanding its grower base.

Ankur Aggarwal, MD, Crystal Crop Protection says, “We have completed the transaction ahead of target date and now Crystal team will take over the business. Mustard, pearl millet and cotton hybrids are strong brands, preferred by farmers. The acquisition will strengthen our field crop seed business and make us a strong integrated Agri- Input player. We expect this business to contribute 10 per cent of annual turnover.”

With this acquisition, Crystal Crop Protection is

Nature

Through this acquisition, Yokogawa will assist customers in the power transmission and distribution sectors to meet their clean energy goals.

Yokogawa Electric Corporation has recently acquired all of the outstanding shares of PXiSE Energy Solutions, a San Diego-based developer of software that enables utilities and other grid operators to deliver reliable and stable power by managing renewables and distributed energy resources (DERs) in real-time. Through this acquisition, Yokogawa will build on its capabilities in the monitoring and control of power generation facilities and assist customers in the power transmission and distribution sectors to meet their clean energy goals.

The addition of PXiSE to the Yokogawa Group will enable the company to help global customers involved in power transmission and distribution to better manage the increasingly diversified energy supply chain, maximise the deployment of renewable energy assets, and ultimately deliver affordable, reliable, and sustainable forms of energy.

Through this acquisition, Yokogawa will assist customers

Supply Chain, Warehousing

The fund will generate superior risk-adjusted returns by investing in high-quality Grade-A warehousing and logistics opportunities

Landmark Capital has launched Landmark Warehousing & Logistics Fund. The fund is targeting a corpus of Rs 500 crore, including a green-shoe option of Rs 200 crore. The fund is targeting investment in Grade-A assets with 60 per cent in warehousing and 40 per cent in other industrial assets across key markets Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, NCR and Chennai. 

The fund is launched to generate superior risk-adjusted returns by investing in high-quality Grade-A warehousing and logistics opportunities. Landmark Capital is focusing on non-speculative built-to-suit assets and diversification across geographies to ensure effective risk mitigation. The fund’s deal pipeline accounts for over 400 acres of land with marquee names as potential anchor tenants.

The fund will generate superior risk-adjusted returns

Agrotech, Machinery - Pre-harvesting, Machinery – Post-harvesting

The XPN concept features a generator drive powered by the load sensing hydraulic circuit of the carrier

New Holland Agriculture has extended the XPowerTM family of electric weeding solutions with the new XPN concept for narrow vineyards integrated into the New Holland Braud 9000N carrier, which is making its first public appearance at the SITEVI 2021 fair. The new solution builds on the experience gained with the XPS for wide vines over the past two years.

 

The XPN concept features a generator drive powered by the load sensing hydraulic circuit of the carrier. It is also equipped with a brand-new applicator specifically suited to the requirements of the narrow vineyards in terms of weeding width and adaptability to the types of vines encountered, for example in the Champagne region.

 

Consistently with New Holland’s multipurpose approach, the XPN will be integrated into the carrier, with the installation of two pairs of applicators on the machine’s original tool holders in combination with the use of its IntelliView IVTM interface.

 

The use of XPower technology, which is respectful of the soil and the vine, its site flow, and carbon footprint make the XPN a true alternative to chemical herbicides and tillage for weed control.

 

The AGXTEND, New Holland Braud and Zasso teams are working hand in hand on this project, combining their know-how and expertise to address technical challenges, to be ready for a market launch for the 2023 season.

The XPN concept features a generator drive

Agro Universities, Trade

75 farmers participated in the programme

School of Organic Farming, PAU Ludhiana organised a farmers’ training programme on ‘Cultivation and Processing of Aromatic & Spice Crops’ in collaboration with Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Langroya, SBS Nagar. The programme was organised under the aegis of the Directorate of Arecanut & Spices Development, Calicut, Kerala and 75 farmers participated in the programme. Dr Rajendar Kumar, Principal Agronomist coordinated the training programme. Dr SS Walia inaugurated the programme and shared the information on profitable aromatic and spice crop based cropping systems. Dr Amandeep Singh Brar, Deputy Director, KVK Langroya, SBS Nagar briefed the participants about the scope of the aromatic and spice crops in district SBS Nagar.

Dr Kumar highlighted the importance of aromatic, herbal and spice crops and elaborated the cultivation practices of turmeric and mentha. Lectures on the processing of turmeric and other spice crops, cultivation of Cymbopogon species, production practices of seed spices, insect pests and diseases of aromatic, medicinal and spice crops and their management, Agri-Business model for aromatic and medicinal plants and export procedure for agri commodities were delivered by Dr Kumar, Dr Vajindar Pal, Dr Kamaldeep Singh Sangha, Dr Tarsem Chand, Dr Subash Singh, Dr Khushdeep Singh Dharni and Dr Tejbeer Singh.

Thereafter, the experts had a fruitful discussion with the farmers and answered their queries. Dr Kuldeep Singh Bhullar, fruit scientist and Dr Vajindar Pal, Agronomist familiarized the participants with aromatic, medicinal and spice crops by arranging an exhibition showcasing various aromatic and spice crops and their products. Fenugreek seed of variety ML 150 was distributed among the farmers.

Plants of Gudmar, Bajradanti, Satavar, Ajwainpatta, Kalmegh, Lemongrass, Curry patta, Akarkara etc were distributed among the participants by Dr Rajender Kumar and Dr Amandeep Singh Brar. The participants were highly satisfied with the programme and desired more such kind of training in future. The training ended with a vote of thanks by Dr Tejbeer Singh, KVK Langroya, SBS Nagar.

75 farmers participated in the programmeSchool of

AgroPolicy, Supply Chain, Trade

A quantity of 290.98 LMT of Paddy has been procured in KMS 2021-22 up to 30.11.2021

The paddy procurement is progressing smoothly in Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2021-22 at MSP from farmers, as was done in previous years. A quantity of 290.98 LMT of Paddy has been procured in KMS 2021-22 up to 30.11.2021 in the procuring States/UTs of Chandigarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Telangana, Rajasthan, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Odisha, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

 

Till now about 18.17 lakh farmers have been benefitted with an MSP value of Rs 57,032.03 crore. So far, the maximum procurement in the ongoing KMS season is done from Punjab (18685532MT) followed by Haryana (5530596MT) and Uttar Pradesh (1242593MT). The procurement in other states is also gaining momentum. 

 

Pertinently, in KMS 2020-21, at least 13113417 farmers have benefitted with an MSP value of Rs 168823.23 crore (as of 30.11.2021) and procurement of 89419081 MT was done. 

A quantity of 290.98 LMT of Paddy