Agriculture Current Affair 25 February 2022

Wholesale price of Mustard oil drops 10%

The start of mustard harvesting in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh has driven down the wholesale price of mustard oil by Rs 15 to Rs 135/litre–a 10% drop from the rates in January when it was around Rs 150.

The impact will be felt at the retail end from next month when prices are expected to come down to Rs 160-170 per litre from Rs 200. Mustard oil prices have been pinching consumers for more than a year now.

“Prices of mustard oil have come down since harvesting started from middle of February in certain pockets of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh,” Vijay Data, managing director of edible oil manufacturing firm Vijay Solvex, told ET. “Prices will further fall when the arrival picks up in March.”

Budget 2022 focusses on making agriculture smart, modern: PM Modi

Agricultural loans for farmers have been increased by 2.5 times in the last seven years, the Prime Minister said while adding that the union budget presented on February 1 will give a major boost to modernise agriculture and also promote natural farming, with a special focus on agri-waste management.

Increasing farmer’s income, reduce farming cost and connecting farmers to market is the aim of the government, PM Narendra Modi emphasized. He called on the corporate world, technology sector, financial world and start up world to collaborate with the government and take Budget initiatives to farmers before they start the new agriculture year this year.

Talking about PM Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme has become a strong support system for small farmers in the country. He was speaking during a webinar on Budget initiative for Smart Agriculture. “Today this scheme has become big support for small farmers. Under this, about Rs two lakh crore has been given to 11 crore farmers so far,” he said.

Dairy industry’s revenue to rebound 12% this fiscal to Rs 1.6 lakh crore

Revenue of India’s organised dairy industry will rebound by 12% this fiscal to Rs 1.6 lakh crore, compared with a decadal low growth of 1% last fiscal, riding on strong demand recovery in most value-added dairy products (VAP), steady liquid milk sales, and retail price hikes during the fiscal, according to Crisil Ratings.

The rating agency said that the steady demand for both VAP (around one-third share of organised sector sales) and liquid milk (around two-thirds share) is likely to lead to 5-6% growth next fiscal, too, in line with the pre-pandemic trend. More potential retail price hikes provide further upside. Operating profitability, however, will be set back to the pre-pandemic level of 5-5.5% in the next two fiscals — from the peak of 6% seen in fiscal 2021 — because of high raw milk prices, along with higher transportation and packaging costs, and despite dairies increasing retail product prices by 3-4% across categories this year.