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Home2022February (Page 11)
AgroPolicy, Finance

A slew of measures is likely to benefit the sector

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while announcing the Budget 2022, gave a special emphasis on the agriculture sector. Sitharaman mentioned the government’s priority for farmers cultivating paddy, kharif and rabi crops under which 1,000 LMT Paddy is expected to be procured benefitting over 1 crore farmers.

Rs 2.37 lakh crores will be transferred to 163 lakh farmers as Minimum Support Price (MSP) for the procurement of paddy, wheat, rabi and kharif. Chemical-free, natural farming will be promoted across the country with a focus on farmers’ land in 5 km wide corridors along the river Ganga. She also mentioned branding millet products nationally and internationally.

The budget also mentioned the use of drone technology for farming activities. States will be encouraged to revise syllabi of agricultural universities to meet the need for natural, zero-budget and organic farming, modern-day agriculture.

Sitharaman also mentioned a fund with blended capital raised under co-investment model facilitated through NABARD to finance startups in agriculture & rural enterprises for farm produce value chain. Apart from these, finance startups to receive incentives to aid rural enterprises.

A slew of measures is likely to

Agro Universities, Sustainability

About 53 scientists and students from ICAR institutes and state agricultural universities attended the interaction lecture

The Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), organised an online lecture on ‘Ecosystem Services of Forest Plantations and Agroforestry Systems’ to give emphasis on intangible benefits. About 53 scientists and students from ICAR institutes and state agricultural universities attended the interaction lecture that was held under the ICAR development grant.

Dr SK Chauhan, Prof and Head, Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, welcomed the guest speaker Gitanjali, IFS, and participants in the programme.

Gitanjali, joined from Helsinki, Finland and made a presentation on quantification of ecological services of plantations. She emphasised on provisioning, regulatory, cultural and supporting services of the plantations, which are very beneficial but have least been attempted. In recent years, some emphasis has been placed on carbon trading, otherwise, other intangible services (water, soil, biodiversity, oxygen, etc.) have least been quantified and no monetary values are attached, she added.

Dr Dipankar Saha, an Ecologist from ICAR institute, proposed a vote of thanks.

About 53 scientists and students from ICAR

Agro Universities, People

Amai Mahalinga Naik’s farm has become a model farmland and has over 1,000 visitors a Year including foreign tourists

Amai Mahalinga Naik, age 77 years, an innovative farmer from Adyanadka village of Coastal Dakshina Kannada District of Karnataka has been conferred with the Padma Shri Award – 2022 for transforming an arid sloping hill into a fertile farm through the Innovative Zero-Energy Micro-Irrigation System.

Naik single-handedly dug six tunnels of 315 Ft length to bring over water to his farm. He also constructed 300 percolation trenches alone in the hills surrounding the farm with around 5,000 large laterite stones that he carried himself to his farm. Naik built two revetments (15-Ft long, 30-Ft wide and 5-Ft high) and a tank of 12,000 Litres capacity to fill up the revetments. He turned a deserted and barren plot of land into a lush oasis comprising 300 areca nut palms, 75 coconut trees, 150 cashew trees, 200 banana saplings and pepper nines.

In addition to this, he also keeps bees and produces Azolla for his cows as a dietary supplement. For all his efforts, he is also known as the ‘One-Man Army’ and ‘Tunnel Man’ in his surrounding areas. Naik’s farm has become model farmland and has over 1,000 visitors a year including foreign tourists.

Amai Mahalinga Naik's farm has become a

AgroPolicy, Supply Chain

82.79 lakh farmers benefitted with MSP value of Rs. 1,25,020.85 crore

The government has procured paddy from farmers at MSP as like previous years.

A quantity of 637.86 LMT of Paddy has been procured in KMS 2021-22 up to 30.01.2022 in the procuring States/UTs of Chandigarh, Gujarat, Assam, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Telangana, Rajasthan, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, NEF (Tripura), Bihar, Odisha, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

Till now about 82.79 lakh farmers have been benefitted with MSP value of Rs 1,25,020.85 crore.

82.79 lakh farmers benefitted with MSP value

Bee keeping, Finance

Gross margins improved from 39 per cent in FY2020 to 42 per cent in FY2021

Bee Vectoring Technologies International released an update letter to shareholders from Chief Executive Officer Ashish Malik announcing financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year which ended September 30, 2021. 

The company has also made strong progress in key financial metrics: Revenue of $400,000 which represents a year-on-year growth of +47 per cent using constant currency (US$/CAD$) exchange rates for FY2021 and FY2020. As reported, revenue growth is +38 per cent since the CAD strengthened in 2021 as compared to 2020. Gross margins improved from 39 per cent in FY2020 to 42 per cent in FY2021. This improvement was driven by the lower cost of production of BVT’s Clonostachys rosea strain BVT CR-7 and the introduction of the higher-margin honey bee solution.

The company has cash on hand of $2.7 million. The strong cash balance allows the company to continue executing its growth plan as we enter 2022. The company continues to focus on operational efficiency and cash management as evident by a reduction of cash used by operations from $3.67 million in FY2020 to $2.85 million in FY2021.

Gross margins improved from 39 per cent