Agriculture Current Affair 4 November 2022

Need to boost crop productivity, make farming profitable for growth of agri sector: Narendra Tomar

Agriculture Minister Narendra Tomar on Thursday stressed on increasing farm productivity and crop production as well as making farming activities profitable for the overall growth of the sector. He also said there is a need for balanced use of agro-chemicals and fertilisers by creating awareness.

Addressing an event ‘India Chem 2022’, Tomar said the government has undertaken various reforms in the agro-chemical industry and the process would continue in consultation with the stakeholders, including private manufacturing players.

He assured them that the government will make efforts to address the challenges faced by the industry.

Supreme Court orders status quo on GEAC’s decision to approve GM mustard for commercial cultivation

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered status quo on the government move to allow cultivation of genetically modified (GM) mustard in the country, barring its planting until the top court completes hearing a plea opposing the decision. This comes days after the country’s regulator of genetically modified plants and food products approved ‘environmental release’ of Dhara Mustard Hybrid-11 (DMH-11), a geneticallyengineered variant of mustard developed by Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop Plants at Delhi University.

A bench of the Supreme Court has scheduled the next hearing in the matter for November 10.

Aruna Rodrigues, lead petitioner for the case, argued that GM mustard is an herbicide tolerant crop that can cause serious effects on human health and will also contaminate normal mustard. While the original petition was filed in 2005, seeking a moratorium on the release of any genetically modified organisms into the environment pending a comprehensive biosafety protocol in the public domain, there were subsequent applications filed later.

Narendra Singh Tomar launches portal on natural farming

Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Thursday launched a portal on National Mission on Natural Farming (NMNF) for the benefit of the farming community. The NMNF portal (http://naturalfarming.dac.gov.in) — developed by the agriculture ministry — was launched in the first steering committee meeting of the National Natural Farming Mission here.

The portal contains all the information about the mission, implementation outline, resources, implementation progress, farmer registration, blog etc., which will be useful for the farmers. Also, this website will help in promoting natural farming in the country, an official statement said.

Tomar, who chaired the committee, said the mission of natural farming in the country would be taken forward with everyone’s cooperation.

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