Contract farming, Private investments and low MSPs

1. RCF (Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers) is planning to get into contract farming and green house businesses by leveraging its customer network and land holding. The company plans to build a network of at least 1,000 farmers to grow flowers, fruits and vegetables. Recently similar announcement was made by Bayer CropScience.

2. Contract farming verses cooperative farming - what is the difference. My guess is that in former, some corporate guy takes over farm land from small farmers or bound them by the contract, while in the later one, farmers unite and make a society like Amul and sow and sell the produce together.

3. Farmers are unhappy with the low MSP fixed by government. The input costs have risen much faster that the final output. Some comparative numbers with 1966 are given. According to Mahendra Singh Tikait, farmers' leader, fair price for wheat should be rs 3000/quintal and for sugarcane it should be Rs 250 a quintal.

Wireless sensors, Equitool for organics

1. A scientist of Indian origin, along with his team, is developing wireless transceivers and sensors that would collect and send data about soil moisture within a field. The sensors could help researchers understand precisely how water moves through a field, develop better models to predict crop growth and yield and understand the carbon and nitrogen cycles within soils, as well as help farmers manage their nutrient and water resources, which could maximize yields and profits, and minimize environmental impacts.

2. Equitool is a tool to help decision-makers assess whether an organic production and processing standard applicable in one region of the world is equivalent, ie not identical but equally valid, to another organic standard. It will help streamline acceptance of products that are traded internationally according to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Increasing food production, Wastewater to fertilizer, Retail boom

1. Interesting article here on increasing food production.

2. Canada-based Ostara Nutrient Recovery Systems secured $10.5M for wastewater-to-fertilizer technology. The technology helps by removing nutrients, like phosophorus, from wastewater and recycling them into fertilizer.

3. An elaborate article on how retail boom is going to affect the farmers. It covers various aspects like corporate entry into agriculture, cooperative movement, government regulations, SAZ's , public-private partnership , storage , transportation etc.


4. Interesting analysis on rising agricultural input costs, the main contributers to the cost and the way governments are handling fertilizer policies to ensure food-sufficiency.