India, Lithuania agree to intensify agricultural cooperation
Source: PIB, Government of India Minister of State for Agriculture Mohanbhai Kundaria held bilateral talks in Vilnius with Lithuanian vice Minister for Agriculture Vilius Martuseviius. In delegation level talks on October 01, both sides agreed that there was significant potential for intensifying bilateral cooperation in agriculture, particularly in sectors like food and dairy processing. Kundaria was accompanied by Ambassador Ajay Bisaria, First Secretary Meena, Honorary Consul, Wing Commander Rajinder Chaudhary and senior officers of India’s Ministry of Agriculture. Heads of Departments of the Agriculture Ministry of Lithuania attended the meeting from Lithuanian side. Kundaria briefed the Lithuanian side on the latest agricultural initiatives in India including soil health cards to be given to 140 million farmers and special irrigation schemes. The two ...
Price Stabilisation Fund to promote agri-businesses
The Dollar Business Bureau In a move to support the country’s agri-business, the Department of Agriculture & Cooperation on Tuesday, approved the inclusion of Price Stabilization Fund (PSF) as a Central Sector Scheme. The scheme, with a corpus of Rs 500 crore, is expected to support the market interventions for price control of perishable agri-horticultural commodities during 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17. The PSF will be managed centrally by the PSF Management Committee (PSFMC) and is maintained in a Central Corpus Fund account to be opened by Small Farmers Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC), which will act as Fund Manager. The PSF scheme will help states with advance interest-free loans to support their working capital and other expenses on procurement and distribution ...
Twelfth Five Year Plan aims to produce 25 mn tonnes of food grains
The Dollar Business Bureau The reforms and initiatives taken by the Government of India towards improvement of Agriculture & allied sectors will help in achieving a 25 million tonne-target of food grain production by the end of 12th Five Year Plan period. This was stated by M K Kundariya, Minister of State for Agriculture, on Wednesday, during his address at the ‘National Conference on Agriculture for Kharif Campaign-2015’, organised in New Delhi. While lauding the steps being taken by the Government of India through National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture, the Minister stressed on need for making the farming sector a remunerative profession. In this regard, he called for reduced cost of production along with an increase in crop productivity, ...
Government assures expanded market scope for farmers
The Dollar Business Bureau In a move towards providing financial aid to the farmers, the Indian Department of Agriculture and Cooperation is implementing a market scheme that would help farmers in times of glut in production and fall of prices. The Minister of State for Agriculture, Mohanbhai Kundaria, on Tuesday, informed that the scheme named Market Intervention Scheme (MIS) was aimed at procurement of agricultural and horticultural commodities, which are generally perishable in nature. The Minister further informed that the MIS would extend financial support to the farmers by providing remunerative prices in cases of excess production and fall in prices. The MIS implementation is coming into effect in line with the requests made by the State governments expressing ...
Centre moots e-platforms at wholesale regulated markets for transparency
Sai Nikesh | The Dollar Business In a move to curb untrade practices in agriculture sector and offer better market prices to the farmers for their production, the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation has approved a Centre Sector Scheme to be implemented during FY2014-15 and FY2016-17. A Rs 200 crore-worth ‘Promotion of National Agricultural Market through Agri-Tech Infrastructure Fund (ATIF)’ scheme is aimed at providing a barrier-free national market and an improved market access by integrating warehouse based sales, said the Minister of State for Agriculture, Mohanbhai Kundaria. Through this scheme, the government is intended to provide an alternative marketing channel by creating e-platforms at all wholesale regulated markets across the country. For this purpose, the Agricultural Produce Marketing Companies ...
