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Subject: Agriculture

  • [pib] Operation Greens Scheme

    The Union Minister of Food Processing Industries has provided useful information regarding the Op Greens Scheme.

    Operation Greens Scheme

    • Ministry of Food Processing Industries launched the Operation Greens scheme in November, 2018.
    • The scheme aims for integrated development of the Tomato, Onion, and Potato (TOP) value chain.
    • It aims to promote Farmer Producers Organizations (FPOs), agri-logistics, processing facilities and value addition etc. in identified production clusters.
    • Under the scheme, state-wise funds are not allocated as the scheme is demand-driven and projects are approved as per scheme guidelines on the basis of applications received for setting up of projects in eligible production clusters.

    Objectives:

    • To enhance value realization of TOP farmers
    • Reduction in post-harvest losses
    • Price stabilization for producers and consumers and
    • Increase in food processing capacities and value addition etc.

    Key provisions

    • Short term intervention by way of providing transportation and storage subsidy @ 50% and
    • long term intervention through value addition projects in identified production clusters with Grant-in-aid @ 35% to 70% of eligible project cost subject to maximum of Rs. 50 crore per project

  • How to exit farming risk trap

    Context

    The farmers’ protest against farm laws brings into focus the factors afflicting agriculture in India.

    Issues of Indian agriculture

    • Some 50 years after the Green Revolution, an all-India agricultural landscape is characterized by relatively low productivity levels that co-exist with high levels of variation in crop yields across our farming districts.
    • Excessive control: Various government agencies have a say on all aspects of the farmer’s livelihood — the latest count includes 13 central and countless state ministries and agencies.
    • These agencies oversee rural property rights, land use, and land ceilings; commodity prices, input subsidies, and taxes, infrastructure, production, credit, marketing and procurement, public distribution, research, education, trade policy, etc.
    • Poor policies: The result has been a mix of arbitrary and conflicting policy interventions by both the central and state government agencies.
    • Poor provision of basic public goods: This, combined with poor and varying levels of provision of basic public goods, including irrigation explains the poor state of Indian agriculture.

    Risk-to-return in agriculture

    • The following figures indicate the median (typical) district-level yield (in tonnes-per-hectare) for four major crops — rice, wheat, maize, and cotton — along with the geographic variability of this yield (risk) across all reporting districts for each year from 1966 to 2018.
    • Combining these two values — median district yield and its geographic variability across all farming districts — provides us a measure of the all-India level of risk-to-return, in percentage terms.

    Lessons from risk-to-return profile

    • One, the large gap in rice and wheat yields that opened up between Punjab and Haryana and the farm districts in the rest of the country remains far from being closed.
    • Limited mobility of ideas: There is severe unevenness in the provision of common goods across districts — irrigation, roads, power, etc.
    • There is also the absence of well-functioning markets for agricultural land, crops, and inputs, the slow labour reform, and the poor quality of education.
    • These two factors have worked to reduce overall resource mobility within and across our farming districts.
    • Most importantly, they have limited the mobility of ideas and technology needed to increase productivity and reduce the variation of yield across districts.
    • Decentralization failed: As a result of lack of mobility, the real promise of a decentralized system — of experimentation, of learning from each other, and the adoption of best practices and policies — has failed to materialize.
    • Distortion due to subsidies: Various input subsidies and minimum price guarantee procurement schemes provided by the state have worked to worsen the overall levels of productivity and the risk in agriculture, generating adverse effects for all of us, through the degradation of our water resources, soil, health, and climate.
    • At the same time, these policies have tightened the trap our farm households find themselves in.
    • Thus, as is evident in the next chart, outside of rice and wheat, the risk-to-return levels are even higher in the case of maize and cotton, including for Punjab.
    • As a result, the farm households of Punjab and Haryana fear both, the loss of state support for rice and wheat and the higher risks implied by a switch to other crops.

    Way forward

    • Minimize risk: The guiding principle for three farm laws must be to create conditions that allow farm households to maximize their income while minimizing the overall level of risk in Indian agriculture.
    • Freedom of choice: Farmers must be made free to determine the best mix of resources, land, inputs, technology, and organizational forms for their farms.
    • More freedom: Farmers, just as entrepreneurs in the non-farm sector, must be allowed to enter and exit agriculture, on their own terms and contract with whomever they wish.
    • Allow entry of corporates: Entry of the large or small private corporates in the Indian agricultural stream will help the Indian farmer, along with the rest of us, move to a low-risk, high-return path of progress.

    Conclusion

    The more we delay the needed reforms, the more difficult it will prove to be for all of us to extract ourselves out of these risk-laden currents of agriculture.

  • What is National Farmers Database?

    The Centre’s new National Farmers Database will only include land-owning farmers for now as it will be linked to digitized land records.

    National Farmers Database

    • The Central government had proposed an Agristack initiative to create a digital database that focuses on farmers and the agricultural sector.
    • As part of the first step of this initiative, the government has initiated a farmers database that would serve as the core of the Agristack.
    • The database would be linked to the digital land record management system and would thus only include farmers who were legal owners of agricultural land.
    • The database would facilitate online single sign-on facilities for universal access and usher in proactive and personalized services to farmers such as DBT, soil and plant health advisories, weather advisories
    • It would also facilitate seamless credit & insurance, seeds, fertilizers, and pesticide-related information.

    Need for such database

    • India has 140 million operational farmland holdings.
    • The availability of a database would serve an important role in the formulation of evidence-based policies for the agricultural sector.
    • Also, the government can make use of the database for targeted service delivery with higher efficiency and in a focused and time-bound manner.
    • The database could be used to select beneficiaries of government schemes.
    • The availability of data will make it possible to implement digital technologies like AI/Machine Learning, IoT in the agricultural domain, thus opening up the sector to immense opportunities for improvement in productivity.

    Back2Basics: AgriStack Initiative

    • The AgriStack is a collection of technologies and digital databases proposed by the Central Government focusing on India’s farmers and the agricultural sector.
    • The central government has claimed that these new databases are being built to primarily tackle issues such as poor access to credit and wastage in the agricultural supply chain.
    • Under AgriStack’, the government aims to provide ‘required data sets’ of farmers’ personal information to Microsoft to develop a farmer interface for ‘smart and well-organized agriculture’.
    • The digital repository will aid the precise targeting of subsidies, services, and policies.
    • Under the program, each farmer of the country will get what is being called an FID, or a farmers’ ID, linked to land records to uniquely identify them.

  • [pib] King Chilli ‘Raja Mircha’ from Nagaland exported to London

    In a major boost to exports of Geographical Indications (GI) products from the north-eastern region, a consignment of ‘Raja Mircha’ also referred to as king chili from Nagaland was exported to London via Guwahati by air for the first time.

    Raja Mircha

    • The King chili from Nagaland is also referred to as Bhoot Jolokia and Ghost pepper.
    • It got GI certification in 2008.
    • Raja Mircha contains Scoville Heat Units (SHUs) which makes it the world’s hottest chili.
    • It belongs to the genus Capsicum of the family Solanaceae.
    • It has been considered as the world’s hottest chili and is constantly on the top five in the list of the world’s hottest chilies based on the SHUs.

    Answer this PYQ in the comment box:

    Q.Which of the following has/have been accorded ‘Geographical Indication’ status?

    1. Banaras Brocades and Sarees
    2. Rajasthani Daal-Bati-Churma
    3. Tirupathi Laddu

    Select the correct answer using the code given below:

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 1 and 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

    Back2Basics: Geographical Indication (GI)

    • The World Intellectual Property Organization defines a GI as “a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin”.
    • GIs are typically used for agricultural products, foodstuffs, handicrafts, industrial products, wines, and spirit drinks.
    • Internationally, GIs are covered as an element of intellectual property rights under the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property.
    • They have also covered under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement.

  • [pib] Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Padhati (BPKP)

    The Union Minister of Agriculture has provided useful information regarding the Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Padhati (BPKP).

    Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Padhati (BPKP)

    • Natural farming is promoted as BPKP under a centrally sponsored scheme- Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY).
    • The scheme mainly emphasizes the exclusion of all synthetic chemical inputs and promotes on-farm biomass recycling.
    • It stresses biomass mulching; use of cow dung-urine formulations; plant-based preparations and time to time working of soil for aeration.
    • Under BPKP, financial assistance of Rs 12200/ha for 3 years is provided for cluster formation, capacity building, and continuous handholding by trained personnel, certification, and residue analysis.

    About Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana

    • “PKVY” is an elaborated component of Soil Health Management (SHM) of the major project National Mission of Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA).
    • Under PKVY Organic farming is promoted through the adoption of the organic village by cluster approach and PGS certification.

    The Scheme envisages:

    • Promotion of commercial organic production through certified organic farming.
    • It will raise farmer’s income and create a potential market for traders.

    Program implementation

    • Fifty or more farmers will form a cluster having 50 acres of land to take up the organic farming under the scheme.
    • In this way, during three years 10,000 clusters will be formed covering a 5.0 lakh acre area under organic farming.
    • There will be no liability on the farmers for expenditure on certification.
    • Every farmer will be provided Rs. 20,000 per acre in three years for the seed to harvesting crops and to transport produce to the market.
    • Organic farming will be promoted by using traditional resources and organic products will be linked with the market.
    • It will increase domestic production and certification of organic produce by involving farmers.

    Answer this PYQ in the comment box:

    Q.With reference to organic farming in India, consider the following statements:

    1. ‘The National Programme for Organic Production (NPOP) is operated under the guidelines and directions of the Union Ministry of Rural Development.
    2. ‘The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) functions as the Secretariat for the implementation of NPOP.
    3. Sikkim has become India’s first fully organic State.

    Which of the above statements is/are correct? (CSP 2018)

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

  • [pib] One District One Focus Product Scheme

    ODOFP programme

    • The ODOFP programme cover products of agriculture and allied sectors for 728 districts of the country.
    • The products have been identified from agricultural, horticultural, animal, poultry, milk, fisheries, aquaculture, marine sectors across the country.
    • These identified products will be supported under the PM-FME scheme of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, which provides incentives to promoters and micro-enterprises
    • This scheme is being implemented for a period of five years from 2020-21 to 2024-25.
    • The scheme adopts One District One Product (ODOP) approach to reap the benefits of scale in terms of procurement of inputs, availing common services and marketing of products.

    About ODOP

    • The ODOP scheme aims to identify one product per district based on the potential and strength of a district and national priorities.
    • A cluster for that product will be developed in the district and market linkage will be provided for that.
    • It is operationally merged with the ‘Districts as Export Hub’ initiative implemented by the Director-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Department of Commerce.
    • Under the initial phase of the ODOP programme, 106 Products have been identified from 103 districts across 27 States.

    Back2Basics: PMFME Scheme

    • A centrally sponsored scheme that aims to enhance the competitiveness of existing individual micro-enterprises in the unorganized segment of the food processing industry.
    • It aims to enhance the competitiveness of existing individual micro-enterprises in the unorganized segment of the food processing industry and promote formalization of the sector,
    • It further aims to promote formalization of the sector and provide support to Farmer Producer Organizations, Self Help Groups, and Producers Cooperatives along their entire value chain.
    • The scheme envisions directly assist the 2,00,000 micro food processing units in providing financial, technical, and business support for the up-gradation of existing micro food processing enterprises.

  • What the new Ministry of Cooperation needs to achieve

    Context

    Two weeks ago, the government created a new Ministry for Cooperation. India is, perhaps, the first country to have such a ministry. The Ministry can play an important role in the transformation of cooperatives in the country.

    How 1991 economic reforms benefited agriculture

    • On July 24, 1991, India decided to unshackle the spirit of private sector entrepreneurship through the move to de-license industry and reduce tariffs on a host of commodities.
    • Trade policy changes improved the terms of trade for agriculture and benefitted millions of farmers.
    • Agri-exports increased, but this led to higher domestic prices.

    The success story of dairy sector in India

    • In 1991, Manmohan Singh, then finance minister wanted to delicense the dairy sector as well, but there was stiff opposition from Verghese Kurien.
    •  It was after 10 years in 2002 that the dairy sector was fully de-licensed.
    • The competition between cooperatives and corporate dairy players has benefitted millions of farmers around the country.
    • With the entry of the private sector, the growth of the dairy sector accelerated at double the speed.
    • Today, both procure roughly the same quantities and growth in the organised private sector is faster than in cooperatives.

    Performance of cooperative movement in India

    • India’s experience with the cooperative movement has produced mixed results — few successes and many failures.
    • There are cooperatives in the financial sector, be it rural or urban.
    • But the performance of these agencies when measured in terms of their share in overall credit, achievements in technology upgradation, keeping NPAs low or curbing fraudulent deals has been poor to average.
    • Sugar cooperatives of Maharashtra initially touted as exemplars of the movement, are in the doldrums now.
    • Many are being sold to the private sector.

    Performance of cooperatives in dairy sector

    1) Amul

    • The performance of the cooperative champion, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) — with its poster brand, Amul — has been most successful.
    • During Operation Flood, it received a lot of capital at highly concessional terms.
    • But its success is also the result of professionalism, business and, therefore, keeping politics away.
    • But despite the grand success of Gujarat’s milk cooperatives in Gujarat, the model did not spread to other states as successfully.

    2) Karnataka Milk Federation

    • In its eagerness to please milk farmers, the Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF), which sells its products under the brand name of Nandini, gives them Rs 5 to Rs 6 extra per litre.
    • This subsidy, given by the state government, cost the exchequer Rs 1,260 crore till 2019-20.
    • KMF procures a lot of milk and then dumps it at lower prices in the market for consumers.
    • This depresses prices in adjoining states like Maharashtra, affecting the fortunes of Maharashtra milk farmers.
    • If Maharashtra and Karnataka were two different countries, Maharashtra would be challenging Karnataka at the WTO.

    Way forward

    • The new Ministry of Cooperation can work towards ironing out distortions in state price policies due to subsidization such as in Maharastra and Karnatak milk prices.
    • Cooperatives desperately need technological upgradation. 
    • The Ministry of Cooperation can give them soft loans for innovation and technology upgradation.
    • But such loans should also be extended to the private sector to ensure a level playing field.
    • The Ministry of Cooperation needs to ensure the least political interference in the operation of cooperatives.

    Conclusion

    The new Ministry of Cooperation can work towards bringing in professionalism in cooperatives and make them more competitive.

  • [pib] Kisan Sarathi Platform

    In order to facilitate farmers to get ‘right information at right time’ in their desired language, a digital platform namely ‘Kisan Sarathi’ was launched by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.

    Kisan Sarathi

    • This digital platform empowers farmers with the technological interventions to reach farmers in remote areas.
    • Through this platform, the farmers can interact and avail personalized advisories on agriculture and allied areas directly from the respective scientists of Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVKs).
    • Using this platform, farmers can get information about crop and crop production, among other things that will help them in improving the quantity of their produce.
    • Farmers will be able to get information about good crop practices, the right amount of products and many other basic things.

  • Cabinet extends Agri Infra Fund loans to APMCs

    The Centre has decided to allow state-run market yards to access financing facilities through its Agricultural Infrastructure Fund to calm the fears of protesting farmers that such market yards are being weakened.

    Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) Schemes

    • It is a Central Sector Scheme meant for setting up storage and processing facilities, which will help farmers, get higher prices for their crops.
    • The Union Cabinet approved this scheme in July 2020 for a period of 10 years.
    • It will support farmers, PACS, FPOs, Agri-entrepreneurs, etc. in building community farming assets and post-harvest agriculture infrastructure.
    • These assets will enable farmers to get greater value for their produce as they will be able to store and sell at higher prices, reduce wastage and increase processing and value addition.

        Note the following things about AIF:

        1) It is a Central Sector Scheme

        2) Duration of the scheme

        3)Target beneficiaries

    What exactly is the AIF?

    • The AIF is a medium – long term debt financing facility for investment in viable projects for post-harvest management infrastructure and community farming assets through interest subvention and credit guarantee.
    • Under the scheme, Rs. 1 Lakh Crore will be provided by banks and financial institutions as loans with an interest subvention of 3% per annum.
    • It will provide credit guarantee coverage under Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) for loans up to Rs. 2 Crore.

    Target beneficiaries

    The beneficiaries will include farmers:

    • PACS, Marketing Cooperative Societies, FPOs, SHGs, Joint Liability Groups (JLG), Multipurpose Cooperative Societies, Agri-entrepreneurs, Startups, and Central/State agency or Local Body sponsored Public-Private Partnership Projects

    What are the new changes?

    • The Union Cabinet decided to extend the AIF to State agencies and Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs), as well as federations of cooperative organizations, Farmers Producers Organizations and self-help groups.
    • They will now be eligible for interest subvention for loans up to ₹2 crores, with APMCs allowed to access separate loans for different kinds of infrastructure projects to build cold storage, silos, sorting, grading and assaying units in their market yards.
    • The scheme has also been extended to 2032-33.

    Why such a move?

    • The modifications in the Scheme will help to achieve a multiplier effect in generating investments while ensuring that the benefits reach small and marginal farmers.
    • The APMC markets are set up to provide market linkages and create an ecosystem of post-harvest public infrastructure open to all farmers.
    • This is also proof that APMC will not end as the farmers’ concern since the three farm laws.

  • [pib] Export of GI certified Bhalia Wheat

    In a major boost to wheat exports, the first shipment of Geographical Indication (GI) certified Bhalia variety of wheat was exported today to Kenya and Sri Lanka from Gujarat.

    Bhalia Wheat

    • The GI certified wheat has high protein content and is sweet in taste.
    • The crop is grown mostly across Bhal region of Gujarat which includes Ahmadabad, Anand, Kheda, Bhavanagar, Surendranagar, Bharuch districts.
    • The unique characteristic of the wheat variety is that grown in the rainfed condition without irrigation and cultivated in around two lakh hectares of agricultural land in Gujarat.
    • The Bhalia variety of wheat received GI certification in July, 2011.
    • The registered proprietor of GI certification is Anand Agricultural University, Gujarat.

    Answer this PYQ in the comment box:

    Q.Which of the following has/have been accorded ‘Geographical Indication’ status?

    1. Banaras Brocades and Sarees
    2. Rajasthani Daal-Bati-Churma
    3. Tirupathi Laddu

    Select the correct answer using the code given below:

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 1 and 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

    Back2Basics: Geographical Indication (GI)

    • The World Intellectual Property Organization defines a GI as “a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin”.
    • GIs are typically used for agricultural products, foodstuffs, handicrafts, industrial products, wines and spirit drinks.
    • Internationally, GIs are covered as an element of intellectual property rights under the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property.
    • They have also covered under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement.