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Agrotech, Pulses

AgNext engaged with five FPOs – VCMF, Markfed, MahaFPC, Pruthashakti and VAAPCO

AgNext Technologies collaborated with NAFED to organise a virtual training and awareness programme for Maharashtra’s biggest FPOs (Farmer Producer Organizations) on pulses’ quality assessment. AgNext engaged with five FPOs – VCMF, Markfed, MahaFPC, Pruthashakti and VAAPCO – to create awareness about the quality standards of pulses, particularly toor dal, for the upcoming procurement season. The session was attended by FPO leaders, who will in turn train 40,000-50,000 farmers across Maharashtra.

The objective of the training programme was to train the FPOs about the different market quality standards for tur dal. On the basis of this assessment, the commodity is graded and priced in the market. Practical demonstrations of physical assessment parameters were done to apprise the participants on how to recognise broken, damaged, immature, shriveled or weevilled pulses, foreign matter presence, moisture content in the samples, and other essential parameters. The participants were also shown how AgNext’s physical quality assessment device ‘SpecX Visio’ can instantly analyse the tur dal samples and do the physical quality check in less than a minute.

AgNext engaged with five FPOs – VCMF,

Supply Chain

SV Agri will expand its footprint, build-out cold storage facilities and expand its engineering platform

WayCool Foods, an agri-commerce company, announced the completion of its investment in SV Agri (SiddhiVinayak Agri Processing), fully integrated players in the potato supply chain ecosystem. WayCool initiated the process in July 2021 and has completed its investment of $7.5 m in the company.

Karthik Jayaraman, MD, WayCool Foods said, “Our investment into SV Agri is in line with our overall strategy to bring product-specific value chains onto our platform, and unlock significant value through the same. SV Agri has expertise in growing and providing high-quality potato seed tubers, best in class storage solutions, and top of the line engineering solutions for value-added products. WayCool will bring its technology platform, reach and distribution capability.”

Hemant Gaur, Co-Founder, SV Agri, added, “SV Agri has been introducing a wide variety of potatoes into the market. We will further expand existing storage solutions while also gaining access to WayCool’s strong network across India and international markets. The synergy will help to create value in the supply chain: with potato varieties, superior storage technology, and the ability to process potato into value-added products, and scale up rapidly.”

SV agri has a Joint Venture with Agrico, one of the world’s largest potato seed company headquartered in The Netherlands.

WayCool had recently announced an aggressive growth plan entailing over $100 million investment in technology, product development, facility expansion, and new company acquisitions over the next four years.Focusing on food development and distribution, WayCool leverages innovative technology to scale and operate a complex supply chain from soil to sale. Implementing deep tech and automation has enabled WayCool to successfully create a ‘World Class, Sustainable Supply Chain’. The supply chain also helps in ensuring the timely delivery of fresh and hygienic produce to their client base and to households across India.

SV Agri will expand its footprint, build-out

Company News

This new hybrid variety of Bajra will give more benefit to the farmers because this Hybrid gives more fodder with good yield.

Hyderabad based Nuziveedu Seeds Limited Company has released a new Bajra hybrid “Sunmax” through a digital platform in which more than 5000 farmers participated online. The programme was broadcast live on social media such as YouTube and Facebook.

Addressing the farmers, the officials of Nuziveedu Seeds Limited Company highlighted the features of Hybrid Bajra “Sunmax”.

The officials said, “The new hybrid Bajra “Sunmax” matures in 80 to 85 days and remains green till ripening this variety is best for planting in the summer season, the length of the plant of this variety is 7 to 8 feet.” This new hybrid variety of Bajra will give more benefit to the farmers because this Hybrid gives more fodder with good yield and due to the good quality of the grain.

The officials of Nuziveedu Seeds Limited Company encouraged the farmers to do modern scientific farming and informed them about the management of diseases and pests and fertiliser management in time. Nuziveedu Seeds Limited Company’s hybrid Bajra “Sunmax” will benefit the farmers in the summer season with more fodder and more yield.

This new hybrid variety of Bajra will

Environment, Pulses

USA Dry Pea Lentil Council hopes for improved talks on India tariffs to continue the pulse trade with India.

USA Dry Pea & Lentil Council (USADPLC), the highest quality producer of lentils, dry peas, and chickpeas for national and international markets, has exuberantly laid out a vision for a healthy and viable 2022. As per the USADPLC, the year 2022 glances over sustainable development goals, including good health and well-being. In addition to the objective of a sustainable year, USA Dry Pea Lentil Council hopes for improved talks on India tariffs to continue the pulse trade with India.

Speaking about the prospects for 2022, Sachin Khurana, India Representative, USADPLC, said, “India is an extremely crucial market for our exporters. We remain hopeful that the trade barriers will be resolved in 2022, and the pulses trade relation between India and the US will return to normalcy. Also, in 2022, we will continue to strengthen our sustainability story and educate Indian importers, traders, and consumers about the benefits of sustainable commodity – Pulses.”

Khurana added, “In 2022, USADPLC is also aiming to focus on ‘Standard for Quality’ – an initiative to highlight the quality and premium standard of US Pulses. Through this campaign, we aim to engage with retailers and spread awareness amongst consumers about the superior quality of US Pulses.” 

USA Dry Pea Lentil Council hopes for

Agro chems – Fertilizers, People

Sanghani is the 17th chairman of the Cooperative

Dileep Sanghani has been elected as the chairman of the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (IFFCO). The election was held on Wednesday, IFFCO said in a statement. Sanghani was elected due to the demise of incumbent Chairman Balvinder Singh Nakai earlier on October 11, 2021. Sanghani has been elected as the 17th chairman of the Cooperative.

Before this, Sanghani was serving as the IFFCO vice-chairman. Sanghani was elected as the vice-chairman of IFFCO in the year 2019.

Sanghani served as the minister of Agriculture, Co-operation Animal Husbandry, Fisheries, Cow-Breeding, Prison, Excise Law & Justice, Legislative & Parliamentary Affairs in the Cabinet with the Gujarat government. In 2021, Sanghani was elected to the position of the President of the National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI), the apex body of the Cooperatives in India.

Sanghani is the 17th chairman of the

Agrotech

Growing stress on the food supply chain due to exponentially increasing population etc are some of the leading factors

The Global Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture Market is estimated to grow from $893.43 million in 2019 to $8342.37 million in 2030 with a CAGR of 22.52 per cent. Factors such as growing stress on the food supply chain due to exponentially increasing population, rising implementation of the Internet of Things in the agricultural sector, improving the standard of living, growing focus on enhanced crop monitoring, and increased demand for higher agricultural yield, are driving growth in the artificial intelligence market.

Moreover, limited land for agriculture coupled with supportive government policies to encourage the use of AI technologies is anticipated to fuel the market growth. Nonetheless, insufficient knowledge of high technology machine learning solutions in agriculture can hamper the growth of artificial intelligence in the agriculture market. However, the increased use of drones in farms is expected to accelerate the deployment of artificial intelligence in the agriculture market.

“Growing global demand for food, farmers need to increase crop production either by increasing the amount of agricultural land or by adopting advanced agricultural methods such as precision farming”, said a lead analyst at Fatpos Global.

Growing stress on the food supply chain

AgroPolicy

FCV crop size has witnessed a sharp drop of 39% from 316 million kg per annum to 194 million kg per annum between 2013-14 to 2021-22 due to high taxes on legal cigarettes. 

Federation of All India Farmer Associations (FAIFA), flagged the issue with relates to the consumption price of legal cigarettes in India that has reached the maximum limit to a level where the purchasing capacity of consumers can absorb against the backdrop of cheaper and fast-growing illicit cigarettes and alternatives. It also stated that any further increase in taxes would lead to a severe reduction in flue-cured Virginia (FCV) cultivation and impact the livelihoods of farmers.

The increase has resulted in shrinkage of FCV crop size by a sharp 39 per cent from 316 million kg per annum to 194 million kg per annum between 2013-14 to 2021-22. The FCV cultivation acreage in India has also witnessed a huge drop from 2,21,385 hectares in 2013-14 to 1,22,257 hectares in 2020-21 leading to 35 million man-days of employment loss.

Pointing to the plight of FCV tobacco farmers, Gadde Seshagiri Rao, Ex-Vice Chairman, Tobacco Board & Vice President, FAIFA stated, “The above situation is stressing the farm community as consumers shift to smuggled cigarettes that do not use domestic tobacco. Given that India has a huge and widespread dependence on the tobacco crop for livelihood, the government must act reasonably and responsibly to bring price parity between cigarettes and other forms of tobacco to check the illicit cigarettes market.”

FAIFA also highlighted that the tobacco farmers in the country are suffering due to the actions of vested groups that are advocating high taxes on FCV tobacco under the garb of achieving the government’s tobacco control goals. These groups are bombarding the policymakers with misleading data and flawed research reports that present a skewed picture of the illegal cigarette trade in India to downplay the severity of the illegal cigarette trade in the country.

Javare Gowda, President, FAIFA stated, “It is noteworthy to know that a recently released report by Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) states that one of the largest global cigarettes MNC as part of its market expansion strategy has been using smuggling as one of the distribution channels to increase their market penetration.”

Murali Babu, General Secretary, FAIFA, commented, “ It is high time that the government takes an all-en-compassioning approach to meet its tobacco control goals so that the interests of FCV tobacco farmers are also protected.”

Yashwanth, National Spokesperson, Federation of All India Farmer Associations (FAIFA) stated, “The government needs to embrace an integrated approach to tobacco control in India given tobacco industry’s substantial contribution to the country’s GDP and livelihood dependence on tobacco farming.”

FCV crop size has witnessed a sharp

Agro Universities

Pledges $1M for underserved students who wish to pursue a broad set of agricultural interests

Chobani announced an expansion of its scholars programme, adding a pledge of $1 million dollars and a focus on supporting historically underserved students who wish to pursue a broad set of agricultural interests. The programme has helped dozens of university students pursue their ambitions in the dairy industry. That mission now includes creating a more equitable future in agriculture.

Through its partnerships with Cornell University and the University of Idaho, the Chobani Scholars Program will offer eight $20,000 scholarships ($5,000 each year) over five years to historically underserved students interested in studying agriculture, dairy, food science, and/or food entrepreneurship. Chobani will also provide $20,000 of annual funding to each of the universities during the same time period to support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training and education. Chobani Scholars will have an opportunity to intern with Chobani during their college careers. In prior years the programme was limited to students from a dairy background who were pursuing a career in dairy.

“Today’s announcement builds on our mission to help ensure opportunities for students from underserved communities with an interest in working on a farm or in agribusiness, in food science, and those who want to start a food business,” said Peter McGuinness, Chobani President and Chief Operating Officer. “We’re proud to be supporting dozens of current students in our home states of Idaho and New York, and we’re thrilled to be expanding the Chobani scholars programme.”

With the announcement, Chobani’s scholarship funding pledge will total more than $1.4 million by 2027.

Pledges $1M for underserved students who wish

Dairy, Start ups

Stellapps has been recognised for its innovative tech solutions in digitising

Stellapps Technologies won the ‘National Startup Award 2021’ by #StartupIndia in the Animal Husbandry sector for its effort in digitising the dairy sector in India. The dairy tech startup was honoured through a virtual ceremony in the presence of Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal. Stellapps is one of the 46 startups announced as winners of the National Startup Awards 2021 along with one incubator and one accelerator.

As a part of the award, the founders of Stellapps were commended with a cash prize of Rs 5 Lakh. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) conceived the National Startup Awards appreciating the efforts of enablers that are building innovative products or solutions and scalable enterprises, with high potential of employment generation or wealth creation, demonstrating measurable social impact.

Stellapps has been recognised for its innovative tech solutions in digitising and strengthening the dairy farming processes. With a prime focus on data acquisition and machine learning, the startup aims to digitise the dairy supply chain. The technology can be used where the yield per animal is low with inadequate traceability.

Stellapps has been recognised for its innovative

Dairy, R&D, Sustainability

According to research, new strategies are needed to limit nitrogen and phosphorus losses from crop fields

Dairy farmers in the Northeast, Pennsylvania, US — facing a warming climate that exacerbates nutrient pollution but lengthens the growing season — can reduce the environmental impact of their operations and maximise revenues by double cropping and injecting manure into the soil, rather than broadcasting it, according to research.

A team of researchers, led by Penn State agroecologists, whose new study evaluated whole-farm production and the environmental and economic impacts of adopting these practises on a representative dairy farm in central Pennsylvania under recent historical and projected mid-century climate.

The research is important, according to Heather Karsten, associate professor of crop production/ecology in the College of Agricultural Sciences, because dairy farms — especially in the Northeast — are increasingly subject to more stringent regulations to reduce nutrient losses. With expected warmer conditions that will result in increased ammonia volatilisation from manure and more frequent and more severe storms that will cause more soluble phosphorus runoff, new strategies are needed to limit nitrogen and phosphorus losses from crop fields.

Double cropping offers the added benefit of keeping soil continuously covered by vegetation, reducing nutrient runoff, erosion and sedimentation. Winter small grains are seeded after corn for silage is harvested in September, and they germinate and grow until cold temperatures make them go dormant for the winter. They begin to grow again in late March and continue to develop until they are harvested in May, just before the corn crop is planted.

The researchers found that double-cropping increased and stabilised the farm’s feed production by providing forage from a winter rye crop with less dependency on the summer crops of corn silage and perennial cool-season grasses. Summer crops are susceptible to summer droughts, Karsten explained, which are expected to increase in this region due to warmer temperatures and increased evapotranspiration.

According to research, new strategies are needed

Agrotech

Launches next-generation software platform offering best-in-class agricultural analytics

EarthDaily Analytics Corp, a vertically-integrated data processing and analytics company pairing cutting-edge big data tools with proven space technologies announced the rebranding of its Geosys division to EarthDaily Agro. The company also announced the launch of a new, next-generation software platform offering best-in-class agricultural analytics service with unmatched reach, speed, quality and integration capabilities.

In addition to its role as a presenting sponsor at VISION, EarthDaily Agro hosted a virtual media roundtable to share the news and discuss how decision-makers in the AgTech industry can use the new platform to tackle some of the world’s most challenging and dynamic issues in real-time.

EarthDaily Analytics Chief Executive Officer Don Osborne said that the new name reflects the agricultural and food systems division’s essential role within the larger EDA business, with the agricultural service offering positioned to benefit from EDA’s rapid expansion and unmatched scalability and capability within the value-added geoanalytics sector.

“We’re excited because EarthDaily Agro’s dramatically strengthened service offering for our agricultural customers epitomises what’s next for our entire EarthDaily Analytics business, moving far beyond bulk images and data to incorporate our value-added geoanalytical insights and solutions into customers’ workflows in a way that helps them mitigate risk and make the best possible decisions every day,” Osborne said.

The well-known Geosys brand will live on as the name of EarthDaily Agro’s next-generation software platform — a platform that is easier to use and offers more flexibility, faster speed and greater scale — to provide more customers with more data in more markets in agriculture. The new platform will be rolled out over the course of the first quarter 2022.

Launches next-generation software platform offering best-in-class agricultural

Organic, Sustainability

The partnership will focus on to increase organic, regenerative farming

Daily Harvest announced a multi-year partnership with American Farmland Trust (AFT) and California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) to support historically underserved farming communities in California. Together they will work to improve farm viability in the region and expand the acreage of farmland, adopting organic and regenerative farming practices.

The partnership will enable the organisations to continue to advance organic agriculture, promote environmentally sound farming practices, and increase access to organically grown fruits and vegetables, all while centering on equity in the farming community. This commitment toward supporting historically underserved farmers and addressing service gaps will further improve human and planetary health.

Together, Daily Harvest, CCOF and AFT will develop a suite of services, including tailored technical and financial resources for farmers who have lacked access, and support as many farmers as possible in the transition to organic production. By providing educational programming and offering financial assistance, the three organisations will help to address service gaps and meet farmers’ needs. The shared goal to scale up regenerative agriculture within the US farming community can lead to more profitable and sustainable farm operations that are better for humans and the planet.

Together the organisations will equip farmers with the tools needed to be successful in their transition, leading to more organic and regenerative food in the fields and on our plates. Throughout the partnership, Daily Harvest will consider participants as future supply chain partners.

The partnership will focus on to increase

Agro chems – Pesticides

Archive is a powerful pre-mix fungicide that will help growers combat the major storage pathogens

Syngenta has launched Archive, a post-harvest fungicide that preserves the quality of potatoes. “Archive is a powerful pre-mix fungicide that will help growers combat the major storage pathogens that threaten their crop,” says Heather Ambuehl, postharvest lead at Syngenta. 

The broad-spectrum fungicide, now registered for use in potatoes, combines two unique modes of action for more broad-spectrum disease control and built-in resistance management. Fludioxonil and azoxystrobin fungicides deliver proven, robust protection against silver scurf and Fusarium dry rot diseases — pathogens that are of particular concern while potatoes are in storage.

Fludioxonil (FRAC Group 12) is a phenylpyrrole fungicide that provides proven control of some of the most difficult-to-treat storage diseases, such as Fusarium dry rot. Azoxystrobin, a Qol fungicide (FRAC 11), effective against all four classes of fungi, brings another mode of action against Fusarium, and provides control of silver scurf.

Archive is a powerful pre-mix fungicide that

Agro Universities, R&D

The MoU is aimed at executing inter-organisational collaborative engagements to promote and facilitate the Students’ training and research

The ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil & Water Conservation, Research Centre, Kota, Rajasthan signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Career Point University, Kota, Rajasthan.

Dr Ashok Kumar, Head, ICAR-IISWC, Research Centre, Kota and Dr SK Trivedi, Dean, College of Agriculture Sciences, Career Point University, Kota signed the MoU on the behalf of their respective organisations.
Prof (Dr) TR Sharma, Vice-Chancellor, Career Point University, Kota along with the senior officials of both the organisations were also present during the occasion.

The MoU is aimed at executing inter-organisational collaborative engagements to promote and facilitate the Students’ training and research.

The MoU is aimed at executing inter-organisational