Tag: Crops

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Agriculture Strategy

Farmers to produce what the market wants

For the first time, the state government is going to regulate the production of crops in India. Farmers in Telangana are going to produce what the market wants. It’s a big move in the right direction and will set ground for a new beginning of Demand Driven Agriculture. This Kharif season, the farmers will be asked to grow paddy on 50 lakh acres (including the Telangana Sona variety on 10 lakh acres of land), cotton on 50 lakh acres and red gram on 10 lakh acres. Farm lands nearer to urban areas will grow vegetables and horticultural crops to tap the demand.

“One should cultivate crops which sell well. They don’t buy whatever you produce”.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao

Asking the farmers to strictly adhere to the cropping pattern, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has said that government sops such as ‘Rythu Bandhu’ (₹5,000 each for farmers in both the seasons for every acre they own) will be stopped to the farmers who don’t conform to the cropping plan.

Farmers base next years supply purely on the previous price and assume that next year’s price will be the same as last year (adaptive expectations). These fluctuations in price may cause some farmers to go out of business.

Limitations of Cobweb theory

As the government is attempting to go beyond advisory and extension roles, it will revamp the Department of Agriculture to take up additional responsibilities. The government will also bring in necessary amendments to the Seed Act.

Read more at The Hindu Business Line

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AgTech Investments

Yamaha Motor Ventures invest AUD $11 million into Australian AgTech, The Yield

The Yield Technology Solutions (“The Yield”), a leading Australian agricultural technology company, received investment of AUD $11 million, led by Yamaha Motor Ventures. Yamaha Motor Ventures is the strategic business development and investment arm of global technology organisation, Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. The Yield is developing its proprietary digital application providing microclimate data and predictive insights to support critical production decisions for large commercial growers in the specialty crops industry.

“The Yield is poised to be The Climate Corp of horticulture and we look forward to supporting the team’s strategic plan to scale its data-driven solution to the global specialty crop market.”

Yamaha Motor Ventures 

The Yield works closely with produce growers to design their products and committed to solving real challenges – at farm level and throughout the food chain. They are on a mission to transform food and farming practices by building secure, scalable digital technology. The Yield’s Sensing+ combines sensors and analytics to provide information and predictions in easy-to-use apps that help large commercial growers make important on-farm decisions like when to irrigate, feed, plant, protect and harvest.

Read more at The Yield

Categories
Investments Trade

Abu Dhabi-based Al Dahra Holding signed a deal with Bulgaria-based AJD Agro

Abu Dhabi-based Al Dahra Holding has signed a deal to cultivate and supply essential crops and forage across Bulgaria. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed with Bulgaria-based AJD Agro and includes alfalfa and other grasses. Al Dahra previously invested in the country through Loulis Mills, the Greek-based flour miller, which acquired the largest flour mill operator in Bulgaria.

AJD Agro cultivates more than 4,000 hectares of land spread across the Lovech region and currently operates an alfalfa dehydration plant with an annual alfalfa production capacity of 20,000 metric tons.

Read more at Arabian Business

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Agriculture Food Security Regenerative Agriculture

What is Regenerative Agriculture?

“Regenerative Agriculture” describes farming and grazing practices that, among other benefits, reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity – resulting in both carbon drawdown and improving the water cycle. It involves, incorporating permaculture and organic farming practices, including conservation tillage, cover crops, crop rotation, composting, mobile animal shelters and pasture cropping, to increase food production, farmers’ income and especially, topsoil.

Only 60 years of farming left if soil degradation continues. About a third of the world’s soil has already been degraded and causes of soil destruction include chemical-heavy farming techniques and deforestation. Generating three centimeters of top soil takes about a 1,000 years.

The loss of the world’s fertile soil and biodiversity, along with the loss of indigenous seeds and knowledge, pose a mortal threat to our future survival. Without protecting and regenerating the soil on our 4 billion acres of cultivated farmland, 8 billion acres of pastureland, and 10 billion acres of forest land, it will be impossible to feed the world. Allan Savory gave a TED talk on fighting desertification and reversing climate change in 2013.

Categories
Policy

Data driven agriculture leads to Sustainable Ag

Putting data to use requires an effective balancing of economic and social interests while minimizing trade-offs. Technologies like genetic modification, protected cultivation, automation help produce more food than we need to survive. The current food system, with its reliance on a handful of crops, is inadequate and unsustainable in the face of climate change and population growth. The United Nations warned that the current global food system is inadequate and unsustainable. Even farmers are being vilified by many—including those in the environmental, scientific and policymaking communities—as enemies of our planet, as indiscriminate polluters and wasters of our air, soil and water resources. 

To meet this challenge, the researchers proposed a two-step process. The initial step focuses on the design of a sustainable framework—with goals and objectives—guided and quantified by digital agriculture technologies. Implementation, the second step, involves increased public-private investment in technologies like digital agriculture, and a focus on applicable, effective policy. Policymakers must make use of digital agriculture to help drive policy including tax incentives and subsidies to support farmers working toward a more sustainable system.

It does no good to design a policy that the farmer will ignore.

Read more at Nature

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Uncategorized

Farm records and its importance

A farm record can be a book, document, file (excel spreadsheet), or software that is used to keep track of the different activities that occur on your farm relating to your operations. Farm records may seem like a highly administrative task that can consume a lot of time, but once you get the hang of it, it will seem less daunting. When recording the information, always ensure that it is relatable, easy to understand, accurate and relevant to you and your farm.

Various types of records that make up your farm records are:

  • Production records including Crop and Livestock records like planting, fertilising, animal health checks etc.
  • Employee records related to the staff members.
  • Logistics records like filing of each delivery note/receipt.
  • Sales records dealing with the revenue generated from the sale of goods and services.
  • Financial records encompassing the daily management of accounting.

Read more at Mbali Nwoko

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Uncategorized

Positive side: Farmers in direct contact with big buyers

The lockdown is driving some long-awaited positive changes in agriculture – it is bringing farmers in direct contact with big buyers in cities and is forcing a change in cropping practices that will help rejuvenate the soil and conserve water. The acute shortage of labour will severely restrict the popular practice of paddy transplantation in Punjab and Haryana which increases the yield but is very water intensive and depletes groundwater significantly. As much as 12 times man-days of labour is required in paddy compared to wheat.

Read more at The Economic Times

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Uncategorized

What is Agricultural Accounting?

Agricultural accounting applies to your family farms or corporations runs their business in agriculture. It does not matter what kind of products you produce or sell in the market. The agricultural production cycles are so unique that the accounting methods used in other industries can not be applied in some cases. For example, some crops are annual or perennial. Some livestock is raised for sale or raised as breeding livestock. Depending on types of crops and livestock, and at which stage of the life cycle crops are in influence the selection of proper accounting methods.

Inventory valuation methods used in agricultural accounting are:
Lower of Cost or Market, LCM, usually means that the inventory is valued at its cost. Net realisable value, NRV, is used when the actual cost of the inventory is difficult to determine.

Read more at Own Biz Accounting