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Agrotech, North America, Sustainable Energy

The $25,000 grand prize will be donated to the Peace Country Gleaners, a non-profit organisation based in La Crete, Alberta, focused on feeding hungry people around the world

BASF Canada Agricultural Solutions (BASF) will donate a combined $65,000 to farming communities across Western Canada. BASF’s Community Challenge called on InVigor hybrid canola growers to nominate a local organisation or initiative for the chance to receive one of eight $5,000 donations, with an additional $25,000 grand prize award in celebration of InVigor hybrid canola’s 25th anniversary season. 

 

The $25,000 grand prize will be donated to the Peace Country Gleaners, a non-profit organisation based in La Crete, Alberta, focussed on feeding hungry people around the world. The organisation processes locally grown vegetables which are then dehydrated to be distributed globally to those in need. Operated entirely by volunteers, the organisation was selected for its local roots and strong global impact. The donation will enable Peace Country Gleaners to make facility improvements and boost production.

 

Brent Collins, Head of Canola Seeds, BASF Canada. “This year’s initiative saw a robust number of submissions, recognising the great organisations that enhance the communities where our growers live and work. BASF is always striving to help build strong and healthy communities, so supporting an organization like Peace Country Gleaners that helps feed the world was a natural fit.”

 

The Community Challenge—which ran from August 30 to October 15, 2021—generated nearly 100 entries from growers across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Canada’s prime canola-growing region. Eight winning recipients were selected by random draw, and each received a $5,000 donation in their name to their selected community initiative or organisation.

 

The $25,000 grand prize will be donated

AgroPolicy, Environment, Sustainable Energy

An exclusive website on natural farming developed by NITI Aayog was launched

A national workshop on Natural Farming by Agriculture vertical, NITI Aayog was recently held where Krishi Vigyan Kendras across India under the Chairmanship by Dr Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog participated.

 

The opening remark of the event was given by Dr Neelam Patel, Senior Adviser (Agriculture), NITI Aayog which was followed by an address by Ramesh Chand, Member (Agriculture). He mentioned the journey of the country from food deficiency to food surplus and the need to focus on doubling farmers’ income. He also emphasised on the scientific validation of natural farming practices. 

 

An exclusive website on natural farming developed by NITI Aayog was launched by Dr Kumar. The website covers information regarding natural farming including coverage of the practice in India, various schemes and initiatives by Central and State Governments, success stories from farmers and relevant publications among others. The website can be accessed at https://naturalfarming.niti.gov.in/. 

 

Acharya Devvrat, Governor of Gujarat mentioned the advantage of natural farming over organic farming considering the lesser input requirement and reduced labour cost. Devvrat emphasised that natural farming was based on frontline technologies and scientific principles. 

 

The first technical session of the workshop was chaired by T Vijayakumar, Vice Chairman, Rythu Sadhkar Sanstha, Andhra Pradesh. He shared the experiences of Andhra Pradesh in natural farming. Priya Ranjan, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, highlighted the schemes and initiatives of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare for the promotion of natural farming. The potential of natural farming for addressing the global challenges related to the agriculture sector was underlined by Dr Ravi Prabhu, DDG, World Agroforestry Centre, ICRAF.

 

Dr AK Singh, DDG (Agriculture Extension), ICAR, elaborated on the role of KVKs to demonstrate and disseminate natural farming practices. Dr Rajeshwar Chandel, Executive Director, Prakritik Kheti Kushhal Kisan Yojanaa, Government of Himachal Pradesh deliberated on natural farming for fruits and vegetables.

 

The second technical session of the workshop was chaired by Prof JP Sharma, Vice-Chancellor, SKUAST, Jammu & Srinagar and included experience sharing by farmers and KVKs from Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana and Maharashtra followed by open house discussion.

 

More than 1000 participants including state government and KVK officials, researchers from ICAR and Agriculture Universities and farmers have attended the workshop virtually from across the country. 

 

An exclusive website on natural farming developed

Agrotech, Europe, Oilseeds

This agreement will add to Missouri Soybeans already 14 states with SOYLEIC varieties.

 In a cutting-edge partnership, Missouri Soybeans has teamed up with Sipcam Oxon to release the first commercial license of the innovative SOYLEIC trait outside of the United States. This agreement will add to Missouri Soybeans already 14 states with SOYLEIC varieties. The SOYLEIC trait is available to license from the Missouri Soybean Merchandising Council.

Sipcam Oxon, headquartered in Milan, Italy is the first Italian multinational company and one of the world’s leading players in the agriculture sector. Sipcam Oxon owns high expertise in formulation, production and distribution of agrochemicals, bio-stimulants and non-GMO soybean seed.

 Piero Ciriani, Sipcam’s seed business manager said, “High oleic soybeans represent a great opportunity to make a substantial step ahead in providing a healthier and more sustainable oil. Combined with good protein levels, high oleic soybeans can generate multiple benefits to the food market and the environment, to meet farmers and processors needs and the new European guidelines.”

SOYLEIC provides the European Union (EU) a viable non-GMO option to remain competitive in the growing food and agriculture sector. Critical to Sipcam, SOYLEIC is a non-GMO soybean trait, resulting in high oleic oil and meal.

SOYLEIC promotes the use of non-GM crops being grown in the EU, which gives Sipcam the opportunity to contract, grow and process SOYLEIC soybean products domestically. Soybean acres are not substantial in the EU, so the acres that are grown need to be planted with innovative technology that can deliver high quality yields.

Bryan Stobaugh, Missouri Soybeans’ director of licensing said, “SOYLEIC provides that sustainability, and Sipcam has seen the opportunity and seized it. This is a milestone for Missouri Soybeans as an innovation discovered in the public breeding sector from checkoff funded research.”

 

This agreement will add to Missouri Soybeans

AgroPolicy, Dairy, Warehousing

Discussions were held on the recently implemented storage godowns and dairy infrastructure

Anirudh Tewari, Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab chaired a high-powered committee meeting to review the rural infrastructure projects sanctioned by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) under RIDF and other concessional schemes in the state.

 

The meeting was coordinated by KAP Sinha, principal secretary (finance) Punjab. The meeting was attended by principal secretaries and the secretaries of administrative departments and HoDs from different departments.

 

The NABARD team was led by Dr Rajiv Siwach, Chief GM, NABARD Punjab. CGM NABARD apprised that during the current financial year as against the target of Rs 750 crore, projects involving a loan of Rs 823.06 crore have been sanctioned by NABARD under RIDF in the State which is 49 per cent higher than the previous year and 109 per cent of the current years’ sanction target.

 

The CGM, NABARD also informed that during the year projects in diversified fields like large surface-based drinking water projects, additional classrooms, the state-of-the-art dairy infrastructure in Bassi Pathana and the construction of storage godowns have been sanctioned.

 

Further, an amount of Rs 400.04 crore has been released to the state in the current financial year for the RIDF project.

 

The Chief Secretary advised all the implementing departments to submit a shelf of projects for RIDF XXVIII to FD by January 31, 2022. CGM NABARD requested the implementing departments to speed up the tendering and implementation process so that the people at large can be benefitted.

 

The CS lauded the efforts of the finance department, implementing departments and NABARD for the creation of rural infrastructure in the state of Punjab as it will provide a boost to the development of critical rural infrastructure in the state.

Discussions were held on the recently implemented

Agrotech, Finance

Unveils ‘Catalyst Award,’ a financial assistance programme for select FPOs to support their long-term institutional strengthening and growth

Grameen Foundation India (GFI) recently launched a special initiative ‘Catalyst Award’ under its MANDI (Market Enabled Access through Digital Innovation) project to support and develop the farmer producer organisations (FPOs) in Uttar Pradesh.

Speaking at the event, Prabhat Labh, CEO, GFI said, “Small holder farmers, especially women, play the most critical role in ensuring food security in Uttar Pradesh. Grameen’s endeavour is to recognise the role of women small holder farmers, and support them through linkage to markets, technology and finance in order to increase their incomes.”

The MANDI project aims to strengthen the FPO’s capacity to connect smallholder farmers, especially women, to markets and finance, in order to improve farmers’ incomes and resilience. It predominantly works on four thematic areas such as financial linkage, access to market, FPO capacity building on day-to-day operation and compliance, and gender mainstreaming. It also focuses on leveraging data for decision-making and facilitates need-based modern technologies. The MANDI project is implemented by GFI in partnership with Walmart Foundation.

The Catalyst Award is a financial assistance programme being offered to select FPOs to support their long-term institutional strengthening and growth. The financial assistance being extended to the FPOs would help them in serving their members, particularly women and small holder farmers in a better and organised manner.

The day also saw the launch of another initiative on which GFI is collaborating with ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics). Under the collaboration it has developed a support fund for the FPCs (Farmer Producer Companies) in response to COVID-19 pandemic mainly to cope better with situation brought on by the pandemic.

Unveils ‘Catalyst Award,’ a financial

Agro chems – Fertilizers, AgroPolicy, Environment, Sustainable Energy

IREDA will undertake techno-financial due diligence of renewable energy, green hydrogen, green ammonia, energy efficiency and conservation projects for BVFCL

Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Brahmaputra Valley Fertilizer Corporation Limited (BVFCL) for providing its techno-financial expertise in developing Renewable Energy projects and fundraising. The two companies are PSUs under the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy and Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers respectively.

 

The MoU was signed by Pradip Kumar Das, CMD, IREDA and Dr Siba Prasad Mohanty, CMD, BVFCL in the presence of Chintan Shah, Director (Technical), IREDA, Dr RC Sharma, CFO, IREDA, and other senior officials.

 

Under the MoU, IREDA will undertake techno-financial due diligence of renewable energy, green hydrogen, green ammonia, energy efficiency and conservation projects for BVFCL. IREDA will assist BVFCL in developing an action plan to create and acquire renewable energy projects for the next five years.

 

CMD, IREDA while singing the MoU said that IREDA believes this collaboration will inspire other companies of the chemical and fertiliser sector like BVFCL to cut carbon emissions and be environment friendly. 

IREDA will undertake techno-financial due diligence of

Acquaculture, Agro Universities, Agrotech, Live Stock, Sustainable Energy

Discussions were held on the importance of eco-friendly and sustainable farming practices to the Indian shrimp industry

The ICAR-Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture, Chennai signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Shree Rudra Animal Health, East Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh for the Eco-friendly Biofloc-based Multi-phased Nursery / Grow-out Shrimp Farming Technology Transfer.

 

In his address, Dr KP Jithendran, Director, ICAR-CIBA, Chennai highlighted the importance of eco-friendly and sustainable farming practices to the Indian shrimp industry and the potential of such technologies in ensuring the intensification and high-density farming.

 

S Srikanth Sudheer Reddy, MD, Shree Rudra Animal Health expressed a commitment to the programme and working towards eco-friendly aquaculture.

Discussions were held on the importance of

AgroPolicy, Agrotech, Dairy, Warehousing

Four projects have been set up with an investment of Rs 415 crore

Union Minister for Home and Co-operation Amit Shah inaugurated AmulFed Dairy’s new milk powder factory, butter manufacturing plant, poly film manufacturing plant, and an automated warehousing facility in Gandhinagar. The dairy has invested Rs 415 crores in these four projects. 

 

The capacity of the new milk powder factory at AmulFed Dairy, which is a unit of GCMMF, has gone up from 35 lakh litres per day to 50 lakh litres following an investment of Rs 257 crore. The expansion makes it Asia’s largest fully automated dairy. 

 

The new butter plant triples AmulFed Dairy’s butter manufacturing capacity from 40 tonnes per day to 120 tonnes. The plant has been built with an investment of Rs 85 crore. A new robotic high-tech warehousing facility, that will allow the dairy to store 50 lakh litres of long-life milk in carton packaging in high-density storage, has been built for Rs 23 crore.

 

The new poly film packaging unit doubles the plant’s capacity from 20,000 tonnes per annum to 40,000 metric tonnes, making it the biggest poly film manufacturing plant in India. The expansion has been undertaken with an investment of Rs 50 crore.

 

Speaking after the inauguration, Amit Shah said Amul has strengthened each of its three pillars with the new projects.

 

The Union Cooperation Minister also said that many farmers have turned to organic farming, and urged the GCMMF management to help develop the infrastructure for testing, distribution, and marketing of organic products to fast-track their adoption.

 

Shamalbhai Patel, Chairman, GCMMF said the federation is committed to doubling its turnover from Rs. 53,000 crore in 2020-21 to Rs. 1 lakh crore by 2025. The GCMMF chairman urged the chief minister to allocate land for the AmulFed Dairy 2, which is planned near Rajkot. He said the dairy, having a capacity of 20 lakh litres per day, would be immensely beneficial to milk producers of Saurashtra.

 

 

Four projects have been set up with

AgroPolicy, Agrotech, Animal Health, Supply Chain, Trade

Ministers of both the countries acknowledged the significance of creating resilient and secure supply chains

At the recently held Twelfth Ministerial meeting of the Trade Policy Forum (TPF), ’the US and India agreed that the TPF Working Groups on agriculture, non-agriculture goods, services, investment, and intellectual property should be re-activated to address issues of mutual concern on an ongoing basis. Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal and US Trade Representative, Ambassador Katherine Tai co-chaired the TPF meeting.

Further, the ministers acknowledged the significance of creating resilient and secure supply chains. In this context, they agreed that India and the US could, together with like-minded partners, take a leading role in developing secure supply chains in critical sectors of trade and technology.

The ministers acknowledged the tangible benefits accruing to Indian and US farmers and businesses, by mutually resolving certain outstanding market access issues through increased bilateral engagement. Both sides also agreed to continue working to expand bilateral trade in agricultural and food products through the TPF Working Group on Agricultural Goods and committed to holding technical dialogues on animal health, plant health, and food safety and other technical issues in 2022.

Moreover, the ministers welcomed the agreement to finalise work on market access facilitation for mangoes and pomegranates, pomegranate arils from India, and cherries and alfalfa hay for animal feed from the US. In addition, the US agreed to work to complete India’s request for table grapes access to the US, and India agreed to work to finalise the mutually agreed export certificate to allow the importation of US pork and pork products.

Ministers of both the countries acknowledged the

AgroPolicy, Agrotech, Live Stock

Union fisheries minister handed over the certificate during a recently held function in Bhubaneswar

The ICAR-Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture, Bhubaneswar, Odisha’s Virtual Learning App Matsya Setu recently got special appreciation from the Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Government of India during the World Fisheries Day celebrations held at Bhubaneswar.  

 

Parshottam Rupala, Union Minister, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying and Dr L Murugan, Union Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying felicitated the Appreciation Certificate.

 

JN Swain, IAS, Secretary, Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying along with Dr C Suvarna, IFS, Chief Executive, National Fisheries Development Board, Hyderabad and Dr Joykrushna Jena, Deputy Director General (Fisheries Science), ICAR were also present during the occasion.

Union fisheries minister handed over the certificate

Agrotech, Sustainable Energy

The New Holland Smart Farm Experience will demonstrate successful sustainable farming with a connected fleet environment, energy independence and a circular economy model at the “Il Raccolto” farm in Bologna, Italy

New Holland Agriculture has partnered with Il Raccolto farm in Bologna, Italy, to demonstrate sustainable farming practices through a circular economy model and a connected fleet environment. Il Raccolto shares the brand’s vision of environmentally and economically sustainable agriculture based on innovation, agriculture 4.0 technologies, and energy independence. 

 

With this agreement, Il Raccolto becomes the first “New Holland Smart Farm”, partnering with the brand to show its developments driven by its Clean Energy Leader strategy and demonstrate the resulting advanced solutions. It will also support New Holland’s research by providing agronomic data collected through the telematics systems on the machines at work on the farm.

 

Carlo Lambro, New Holland Brand President, stated, “The “New Holland Smart Farm” will be a knowledge centre where we will demonstrate our equipment, deliver training, and share our technological and agronomic know-how, to spread sustainable farming practices.” 

 

It is a forward-looking operation that invests heavily in innovative technologies. It runs a fleet of more than 80 New Holland machines made up of the brand’s most advanced tractors, combine harvesters, forage harvesters, telehandlers, balers, light construction equipment and grape harvesters. 

 

Parag Garg, Chief Digital Officer CNH Industrial explains, “At Il Raccolto farm, New Holland will demonstrate first-hand its vision for Agriculture 4.0, as many of the machines in the farm’s fleet are connected through MyPLM Connect telematics. We know that a connected fleet provides more efficiency and uptime – ultimately providing a higher ROI for our customers. This partnership is yet another example of how New Holland is leading the future of farming by delivering the best digital and technology solutions to our customers.” 

 

 

The New Holland Smart Farm Experience will

AgroPolicy, Dairy

The ultra-modern 5 LLPD capacity dairy plant with 20 MTPD powder plant has been set up with an outlay of Rs 250 cr

Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister, Odisha inaugurated the newly commissioned ultra-modern automated dairy plant of OMFED at Arilo, Cuttack for which technical consultancy has been provided by NDDB. Dr Arun Kumar Sahoo, Minister, Agriculture & FE, Fisheries & ARD, Higher Education, Govt of Odisha; Suresh Chandra Mahapatra, Chief Secretary, Govt of Odisha; Meenesh Shah, Chairman, NDDB; R Raghu Prasad, Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Fisheries & ARD, Govt of Odisha; Pradeep Kumar Jena, Development Commissioner-cum-ACS & Administrator of OMFED and Dr Yeddula Vijay, Director, AH&VS, Govt of Odisha were present.

 

The ultra-modern 5 LLPD capacity dairy plant with 20 MTPD powder plant and other milk products like butter, ghee, flavoured milk, paneer etc. has come up with an outlay of about Rs 250 crore. 

 

A state-of-the-art BSL3 laboratory has been set up by NDDB at Bhubaneswar for ICAR to conduct systematic epidemiological and molecular epidemiological studies on Foot & Mouth Disease (FMD) with an outlay of about Rs 160 crore.

 

NDDB has completed IVF/ ETT Laboratory at CCBF Sunabeda and Chiplima to improve the productivity of milch animals. NDDB has also completed 150 MTPD Cattle Feed Plant at Khurda with an outlay of Rs 27 crore, which can produce up to 300 MTPD Cattle Feed with a 20-hour operation.

 

The ultra-modern 5 LLPD capacity dairy plant

Environment, Sustainable Energy

Sustainalytics assesses criteria which includes UPL’s successes in managing corporate governance, community relations, business ethics, and carbon footprint

UPL has been ranked by Sustainalytics as the highest performing top-tier global crop protection company for overall sustainability performance in the 2021 ESG Risk Rating. With significant improvements across multiple categories, this achievement recognises the work that UPL is doing to Reimagine Sustainability within the global food system.

Sustainalytics provides environmental, social and governance (ESG) research, ratings, and data to institutional investors and companies, and produces an annual report into the sustainability performance of companies working in a range of sectors. The criteria assessed by Sustainalytics includes UPL’s successes in managing corporate governance, community relations, business ethics, and carbon footprint.

Jai Shroff, Global CEO, UPL said, “We are delighted that the hard work and determination of UPL has been recognised and acknowledged by Sustainalytics. We have made it our mission to reimagine sustainability in everything we do – it is the basis for every project we start, every process we design and every business we launch. Congratulations to every person at UPL – everyone has played a role and contributed to this excellent result. But we know that our work is not over, and that even more still needs to be done. We will continue to push ahead with new sustainability initiatives in agriculture to ensure a better world for all.”

Sustainalytics assesses criteria which includes UPL’s successes

AgroPolicy, Dairy

Felicitates winners of the Gopal Ratna Awards

Government of India celebrated National Milk Day with a walkathon at Anand, Gujarat. Varsha Joshi, Joint Secretary (C&DD), Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying participated in the walkathon with several others involving the participants from AMUL, IDMC, IRMA, NDDB, NCDFI and Indian Immunological.

In the presence of Parshottam Rupala, Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Dr Sanjeev Kumar Balyan, Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Dr L Murugan and Secretary (AHD), Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying Atul Chaturvedi, an innovative mobile milking machine was inaugurated that was manufactured by IDMC.

Rupala appreciated the cooperative movement initiated by Dr Varghese Kurien and to NDDB and AMUL for maintaining the legacy and tradition of Cooperatives. It is with the tradition percolated into many other states, the dairy sector grew in India to become the highest milk producer in the world. He also launched IVF lab at Hessarghata, Karnataka and Dhamrod, Gujarat online besides the launch of Grand Start up Challenge 2.0 and web portal for breed multiplication farm.

During the programme, Rupala felicitated the winners of the Gopal Ratna Awards for the categories of Best Dairy Farmer, Best Artificial Insemination Technician and Best Dairy Cooperative Society (DCS). He appreciated all the winners of the Gopal Ratna Awards.

Felicitates winners of the Gopal Ratna Awards