Ethiopia invites farmers from region

Claiming that there is a lot of scope for trade and investment in Ethiopia, Mehreteab Mulugeta, Minister Councilor (II), Economic and Business, Ethiopia, said participation in the Punjab International Trade Expo (PITEX) 2010 had been fruitful as they had been able to work out the possibilities and opportunities of enhancing bilateral trade between the two countries — “especially the northern India and particularly Punjab and Haryana”. Speaking to the media here, Mulugeta said Punjab and Haryana being agrarian states Ethiopia was looking forward to benefit from their expertise in agricultural techniques and the latest technology being used here. Ethiopia, he said, had lots of opportunities in agriculture. “It has a lot of surplus land available for agriculture and the Ethiopian government provides with many facilities to the Indian farmers going there. The government has established a land bank under the agriculture ministry. A total of 1.7 million hectares have been reserved under this policy for foreign direct investment,” he said. This land, Mulugeta said, was given on a lease for 25 to 45 years. Anybody investing in Ethiopia is facilitated with a seven-year tax holiday. Moreover, he said, investors exporting 75 per cent of their produce were eligible for a loan to the tune of 70 per cent of the total project from local banks. “Any investor can repatriate 100 per cent equity to any country out of Ethiopia,” said Mulugeta. Ethiopia produces wheat, rice, oil seed and vegetables in addition to tea and coffee. Other areas where Ethiopia has a lot of opportunities for investment are real estate, infrastructure, hotel management, hospitality, hospital management and mining (gold, coal potassium, iron ore, limestone). Mulugeta said they were participating in PITEX for the first time to promote investment opportunities in India. He showed keen interest in Indian machinery, technology, auto components, agricultural implements, IT services, apart from infrastructure, manufacturing and the education sector.

UP agri sector in for major credit flow during FY12

The agriculture and allied sectors in Uttar Pradesh are in for a major boost during the period 2011-12 with the total credit potential in the farm and non-farm segments pegged at Rs 65,440 crore for the next financial year. This would be a jump of more than 20 per cent over state credit target estimated for the current financial year at Rs 54,000 crore. Uttar Pradesh has been persistently grappling with low credit flow to agriculture, which has restricted unlocking of true potential of the sector. Releasing the Potential Linked Credit Plan (PLP) for the state pertaining to the year 2011-12, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) executive director P L Behra said the commercial banks had been advised to encourage rural sector credit flow. Of the PLP of Rs 65,440 crore,Rs 33,134 crore pertained to crop loan, forming over 50 per cent of the total credit estimate. PLP comprises crop loan, agriculture term loan, non-farm sector and other priority sector loans. Agriculture sector loans alone comprised Rs 44,995 crore of PLP, which is 69 per cent of the consolidated credit projection. Over the last couple of years, Uttar Pradesh has beaten the national average in agriculture growth rate. During 2005-06, the agri sector growth rate of India and Uttar Pradesh stood at 5.9 per cent and 1.9 per cent respectively, as caompared to the corresponding statistics of 0.2 per cent and 4 per cent during 2009-10. However, the state agri credit flow has been dismal compared to the national average. During the last financial year, the credit flow recorded a growth of 7.9 per cent in the state compared to 21.5 per cent across India. In this context, the state had urged Nabard to increase the rural sector credit, since Uttar Pradesh targets to double its farm income in the next three years. In fact, Nabard had hiked crop loan projections byRs 4,000 crore on the state government’s request for additional credit outlay. According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) mandate, annual PLP is prepared by Nabard for the respective states through a consultative process to estimate credit potential in various sectors of the economy. Later, the commercial banks prepared the Annual Credit Plan (ACP) for the state based on PLP, which fixes the individual bank targets under the Lead Bank Scheme.

Interaction between farm scientists, industry inadequate: Hooda

The interaction between scientists of farming universities in India and industry is inadequate and their collaboration can help in faster economic growth, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said. He suggested the need for establishing a close linkage between farm scientists and industrial and business houses for speedy technological innovations in agriculture sector. Speaking at a conference 'Role of state government in agriculture promotion' organised by the Crop Care Federation of India in Delhi Saturday, Hooda said: 'The industry can play an important role in funding the agriculture research institutions. The interaction between farm universities and industry is inadequate. Collaboration between farm scientists and the industry will be mutually beneficial through rapid integration of new knowledge, experience and technologies.' Hooda said that a massive national effort was needed for building modern godowns to arrest post harvest losses of food grains. 'Immediate action is needed to build required infrastructure for storage through public and private sector interventions. Industry should come forward to supplement the efforts of government in this regard,' he added. The chief minister said: 'There is no doubt that the role of state governments in enhancing agricultural production is very critical, but that alone may not take us very far.' Expressing his serious concern over present state of agriculture production in the country, Hooda said that growth of food grain production of the country has either declined or stagnated during the current decade. 'To feed our ever-increasing population, the food grain production has to be doubled by 2040 with consistent 2.5 percent annual growth. Hence, there is a need for the second Green Revolution. It can be achieved only through dynamic approach, focused strategy and application of new tools of science and technology,' he added.

Agro industry to see infra facelift in Gujarat

Agriculture and allied industry in Gujarat is set to witness a make over in infrastructure as well as its competitive strength with industry captains and government putting special emphasize on developing strong supply chain for agro-industry. "Gujarat is front runner in production of several cash crops including castor, cumin and cotton. We need to focus on developing infrastructure for agriculture supplies and storage so as to benefit farmers as well as industries," said Dileep Sanghani, minister of state for agriculture, government of Gujarat. Sanghani further informed that the state was preparing an agro-industry policy focusing infrastructure and improvement in supply mechanism. “A policy will soon be announced on encouraging infrastructure development for agro-industry in state," Sanghani told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar, ‘Agribusiness – Opportunities and Challenges’ at Ahmedabad. As per the statistics provided by the government officials, the state has 65 per cent of cultivable area and the state produces cash crops like castor, potato and cumin with highest productivity. Further, the state contributes over 30 per cent to the country’s total cotton production. Commenting on the contract farming and potato production in the state, KS Narayanan, managing director, McCain Foods India, informed that the state is one of the isolated places in the country where special quality of potato is grown. "We require larger potato for our standard quality of French fries. We have more than 2500 farmers associated with us under contract farming. We are looking at sourcing other commodities also from the state," said Narayanan. McCain also exports its finished products to 18 countries including Singapore, Taiwan, China and several countries in South East Asia and Middle East. Speaking about the state of agro-industries in India, S Dave, director, Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) informed that the industry is still developing. The government is planning to set up cold chain corridor across western, southern and eastern regions of the country. As a part of this initiative, we will promote export via sea port or air port and develop cold storages there. We are working with backward integration by developing hinterland to ensure supply chain in place," Dave said. For western region Gujarat & Rajasthan are selected, while southern region will have Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as destination states and eastern region includes West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand. "The government will encourage private participants, while at some places we may jointly work with private players," told Dave who was in town to attend the seminar. Dave further informed that India exports roughly around $ 16 billion worth of agriculture produces. "Last year we saw almost stagnant growth due to global economic weakness, but this year we see around 10 per cent growth in exports of agro-produces," he said.

CII to organize agri-horticultural fests in JK

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) announced to organize apple, saffron, walnut, rajmah and basmati rice festivals in Jammu and Kashmir. Chairman CII northern region, R M Khanna made the announcement during the valedictory function of the CII’s four-day farm expo ''Agro Tech 2010''.
J&K Agriculture Minister, Ghulam Hassan Mir who was the chief guest at today’s function urged the CII to help upgrade and modernize agriculture so that “J&K could be part of the glory of India.” Hassan said even though J & K was the number one apple producer in India, the visit to CII’s AgroTech had been an “eye-opener for him regarding the advanced technologies being used in different parts of the world.” “The farmers of J&K need exposure to all these developments and I hope the CII would help in facilitating this,” he said.

Afghanistan Agriculture Minister invites Indian Farmers and Corporates to invest in Afghanistan

Mr Mohammad Asif Rahimi, Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation & Livestock, Afghanistan invited Indian farmers and industry to invest in Afghanistan so that they could increase their business while helping his country to rejuvenate as it slowly rose from the ashes. He was speaking at the inaugural session of the CII Agro Tech 2010 International Conference on “Future of Indian Agriculture-Sustaining Indian Agriculture Growth,” organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and held at the CII Northern Region Headquarters, Chandigarh. He said that Indian entrepreneurs had a great opportunity as they would be welcomed in his country with an open heart. He said that most of the people in Afghanistan could speak Hindi and hence the industry would not have any difficulty in communicating with them. Mr Rahimi said that many Indians were already working in Afghanistan and they could also help in proper management and the application of technology for the advancement of Agriculture. India, he said, was ahead in every field and about 4000 Afghani students at present were studying here. “We are eagerly awaiting their return so that we can take the benefit of their education,” he said. He emphasized that India has a special place in the hearts of the Afghans. “We love Indian movies, jewellery, music, dance and many more things. At the same time, India is also the largest buyer of many products like dry fruits etc. from Afghanistan”. He said before the year 2000, his country was having a 3 percent growth in Agriculture but it fell drastically after that. However, in 2008, it recorded a 4 percent increase but a bigger boost was necessary to feed the people. This was possible only with the introduction of latest technology in Agriculture and India could be of immense help in it. Mr Paramvir Singh, Minister of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Cooperation and Fisheries Department, Government of Haryana, said that Agriculture was passing through a crucial phase, though 60 percent population depended on it. Hence, efforts were needed, besides hard work, in the concerned areas in order to sustain the growth in Agriculture. The private sector could help Haryana in this and industrialists should come forward, he added. He said that there were gaps in the production of Agriculture not only in the states but also in various districts. “There we need to give more attention to storage, warehousing, hybrid seeds, fertilizers, infrastructure, water management and transportation.” He demanded that a Technology Mission in Farm Development be set up and farmers should be provided loan at 4 percent interest. He also referred to the post harvest losses and said that these were alarming. For this, the main reason was lack of storage facilities and infrastructure. Mr Salil Singhal, Chairman, Agro Tech 2010, said that small farm holdings were a big challenge as they affected the buying capacity of farmers. Only technology could help the farmers increase their output. He said that the corporate sector was looking af working with the farmers to provide them with latest technology development. Welcoming the Food Security Act, he stressed the need for the second Green revolution. Mr Gokul Patnaik, Chairman, Agro Tech 2010 Conferences, gave details of the various conferences to be held in four days. Talking about the agriculture scenario, he said that Gujarat was the only state in India which had recorded 9.6 percent growth in Agriculture, while the national average was only 2.3 percent. Soil health and hybrid seeds should be looked into and minimum support price was needed for crop diversification. Mr S Venkatraman, Senior Director & Head of Food and Agribusiness Research and Advisory (FAR), India emphasized the need for focusing on various aspects of Agricultural conditions, like seed replacement, fertilizers and improvement of soil testing facilities in order to rejuvenate it. Mr R M Khanna, Chairman, CII Northern Region assured the Afghanistan Minister that Indian industry would like to invest in Afghanistan in a big way. He said that we would like that bilateral relations between the two countries should grow as far as possible. Agriculture sector was the largest sector all over the world and hence needed the attention of both the Government and the Private sector.

Implementation of APMC act a priority for Government says Pawar

The implementation of the APMC Act is a priority area for the Government and I shall be shortly convening a meeting of the State Agriculture Ministers for this, stated Mr Sharad Pawar, Union Agriculture Minister, while inaugurating CII Agro Tech 2010 today. Visibly impressed by India’s premier biennial agro technology and business fair, Mr Pawar stated that this was his second visit to Agro Tech and congratulated CII for organizing such an Exposition which would surely help in rejuvenating Indian agriculture. Mr Pawar pointed out that India continued to be the largest agricultural market in the world and a leading producer of food grains. He said that 16 crore families were engaged in agriculture in India and 102 million hectares were under cultivation. The production of food grains was 234 million tonnes in 2009. Though the year was one of the best years in agriculture, still we could not be the complacent and there was a need for strengthening the cold chain infrastructure, diversification in agriculture, careful analysis of regional needs, assured power, good support price etc., he said. Mr Pawar stated that Rs. 86,000 crores was given as loans to farmers last year and this figure rose to 3,66,000 crores this year. He hoped that it would be possible to give loans upto Rs. 3 lakhs to farmers at 5 percent interest. He said for the implementation of the “Food Security Act”, we needed 65 million tones of foodgrains. In order to meet this, we had to make purchases from the open market. This might raise prices of other articles. Mr Pawar said that private public partnership could play an important role for the development of not only agriculture but also horticulture, dairy and fisheries. We had concentrated on enhancing production and productivity both by bringing in high yielding varieties, hybrids and efficient farm equipments. Our efforts towards increasing soil nutrients had seen to the new fertilizer subsidy regime. The new seeds bill was also under consideration. The provisions of the Bill would prove an effective check on the spurious and substandard seeds being sold in the market. Simultaneously, the strategy had also been to provide the necessary infrastructure such as soil testing laboratories; storage and processing facilities; sophisticated pest surveillance and monitoring systems; and IT-enabled knowledge dissemination systems for the farmers. The Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, said that the Government had constituted farmers commission to safeguard, the interests of the farming community of the state. Apart from giving number of incentives to the farmers, they were also encouraged to adopt resource conserving technologies and diversify their crops and undertake cultivation of fruits, vegetables, flowers, medicinal and aromatic plants. He said that two good things had taken place – there is 4.4 percent growth rate because of farm sector and the food inflation had come down to 8.6 percent which was lowest in 18 months. Haryana was contributing the maximum to the central pool. Stressing the need for the second green revolution, Mr Hooda said for this more attention was needed for stopping degradation of soil, power availability, seed replacement. There was need for setting up agro processing units and identification of areas for organic farming. The most important is water management. The farm Universities and the private sector’s interaction at present was inadequate and this should be increased. The Afghanistan Agriculture Minister, Mr Mohammad Asif Rahimi, reiterated assured that all facilities would be provided to the Indian prospective investors in his country. He said that many countries like Canada , UK, had invested there but there was still big scope for Indian investors. He said the Government had identified ten areas for investment. The Agriculture Minister of Punjab, Mr Sucha Singh Langa, said Punjab was contributing 60 to 65 percent wheat and 40 percent paddy to the Central pool. He said the Punjab farmers had never let down the Centre in meeting the targets. He said that the Agro-based units should be set in every village in the state so that the products being prepared there could be exported. The fragmentation of land holdings was the matter of concern. He said effort should be made to save the small farmers. Chairperson of UK India Business Council, Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt said the relation between the two countries were very good. She said that the Council and CII had been exchanging useful ideas. Mr Rakesh Bharti Mittal, Chairman, CII National Council of Agriculture, said that agriculture could be rejuvenated in India by involving the private sector. Investments could be in private and public sector mode. He said CII would be organizing a national conference on “Ushering Second Green Revolution” through PPP in New Delhi in March. He urged urgent need to revamp minimum support price and made it more market oriented. He emphasized the need for setting up Agri Renewal Mission. Horticulture should be taken out of APMC and farmers should be given freedom to sell directly in addition to markets. These should be average heighted deduction of 200 percent for R&D and external services. Land lease should be given long tenure(no ownership/tenancy rights) and uncap subsidies on drip irrigation and green houses. Mr Salil Singhal, Chairman, Agro Tech 2010 and Mr Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII, spoke on different aspects of Agro Tech 2010 and its theme. Mr Banerjee, announced the CII National centre of food and agriculture, which will help in linking and capacity building.