Agriculture Current Affair 28 July 2022

Farmers’ income doubled for certain crops, shows SBI study

The incomes of farmers have almost doubled for certain crops in some states in the last five years, revealed a study conducted by SBI Research.

According to the study, the incomes of soybean farmers in Maharashtra and cotton in Karnataka doubled during the period, while for all other cases it rose in the range of 1.3-1.7 times. The average incomes of wheat farmers in Rajasthan grew 1.3 times during the period, whereas groundnut farmers in Gujarat grew 1.5 times.

The study was based on primary data of SBI’s agri portfolio across states containing granular data of various crops from agri-intensive branches and analyzed the change in income of farmers over the past five years.

Wheat prices up 14% in 6 weeks on low supply

Pune: Wheat prices have increased 14% in the past six weeks, as supplies dwindled due to the monsoon season and there is demand for milling, which may now make products like flour, maida, suji, biscuits and bread costlier.

Small traders and farmers have sold off their wheat stocks, while multinationals and big traders are holding the stocks anticipating the prices to rise further, traders said. For the first time this year, wheat from government agency Food Corporation of India (FCI) is not available for the millers.

“Wheat prices are going up almost every day, while the availability is extremely poor,” said Navneet Chitalangia, vice president of the Roller Flour Millers’ Association.

ITC to spearhead MAARS super app to boost agriculture business

Diversified conglomerate ITC Limited will spearhead ITC MAARS super app to boost its agricultural business, an official said on Thursday. ITC NSE -0.23 % CMD Sanjiv Puri told a virtual news conference that the super app will empower farmers by providing them with access to modern tools, right quality of inputs at right prices, besides market and financial linkages.

He said with farmers having fragmented holdings of land, the app will empower them, adding that presently the company has started with 200 farmers producer organisations (FPOs) involving 40,000 farmers.

“Our target is to touch 4000 FPOs and ten million farmers. The farmers can sell their produce to the FPOs or mandi or to a buyer like ITC”, he said.

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