Agriculture - Current Affairs for July, 2016

Following reports of floods in the riverine portions of Bihar, Assam and WB, eminent agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan pitched for the preparation and operation of Flood Code.

• This is an anticipatory code of action for such regions.
• Under the Flood Code, alternative crops must be ready so that when the flood recedes, the plantation of the crops can take place in diara land which goes under water during the monsoon.
• Strategy should be planting saathi maize, sweet potato and rice varieties with genes for stem elongation.
• Farmers get at least one crop and some income for meeting their basic food and income needs.
• Swaminathan is known as the Father of the Green Revolution in India.
• Flood Code can save people in flood prone areas and enhance coping mechanism to handle extreme conditions.

93 seed hubs have been approved under the National Food Security Mission against a target of 150 at the ICAR, State Agricultural Universities and Krishi Vigyan Kendras.

• The approval has been made with an outlay of INR 13981.08 lakh.
• 15 percent of the allocation for pulses component of NFSM is earmkared for producing quality pulses seed through the state
• Cluster frontline demonstration of pulses in 31000 ha has been allocated to 534 KVKs for 2016-2017.
• Government has also launched numerous web and mobile applications for disseminating information on agriculture related activities: Kisan Suvidha, Pusha Krishi, Crop Insurance, Agri Market and India Weather. Major web portals that have been developed include Farmers Portal, mKisan Portal, Crop Insurance Portal and Participatory Guarantee System of India portal.

Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and US Agency for International development launched the second phase of the Feed the Future India Triangular Training Programme.

• This brings specialised agricultural training to professionals across Africa and Asia.
• Indian government and USAID signed a Limited Scope Cooperation Agreement to this effect in 2005.
• 17 countries are covered under the programme including Liberia, Kenya, Malawi. Cambodia and Ethiopia.

Union Government on 12th July 2016 constituted a high level committee to review the minimum support price and bonus for pulses.

• The committee will be headed by CEA Arvind Subramaniam and has been asked to submit the report within two weeks.
• Production of pulses is expected to rise to 20 MT in 2016-2017 from 17 MT in 2015-2016.
• Increase has been caused by a sharp increase in MSP announced earlier but will fall short of 25 MT needed on a yearly basis.

Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare, Shri Radha Mohan Singh has launched Krishi Vigyan Kendra portal in New Delhi.

• There are 645 Krishi Vigyankendras in the nation; centres were established in the rural districts of the country.
• Every KVK has a direct interface and linkage with at least 1000 farmers.
• Farmers and agriculturalists earlier had difficulty accessing information as there was no online monitoring system earlier.
• Portal will provide a platform to provide information and advisory to farmers and facilitate online monitoring of KVK activities.
• KVKs are the the main centre of knowledge and resource in the field of agriculture at the district level.
• This portal will help in monitoring at the national level and providing advisory and timely information to farmers.
• Mandate of KVK is Technology Assessment and Demonstration for its Application and Capacity Development