During celebrations 85th ICAR Foundation Day, Hon’ble President of India launched on 16.07.2013 a SMS Portal for Farmers created by the Department of Agriculture & Cooperation, Government of India Officers, Scientists and Experts of Department of Agriculture & Cooperation, Indian Council of Agriculture Research, Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying & Fisheries, India Meteorological Department and Food grain Procurement Agencies will use this portal for disseminating relevant information, giving topical & seasonal advisories and providing services through SMSs to farmers in language of the State. The State Governments and their field formations down to the Block level (including State Agriculture Universities and KVKs) also have come forward in a big way to use this integrated Portal. Considering availability of more than 33 crore mobile connections in the rural area, Kisaan SMS Portal is likely to be very useful to farmers and all other stake-holders as timely and relevant information will be provided to farmers in their own language. The SMSs will get transmitted only to the farmers within the territorial jurisdiction of an officer, scientist or experts for the crops or agricultural practice that such a farmer might have opted for. Search facility (by text and by topic) for going through previous advisories has also been created to avoid duplication and contradiction in advisories.

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Acting on the recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, the Government has fixed Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) for the Agricultural Year (July-June) 2013-14. MSP for Rice and Wheat have been increased to Rs 1310 and Rs 1350 per quintal.

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In compliance of one of the recommendation/suggestion of the Evaluation Report of Pilot WBCIS, a Committee has been constituted to draft the guidelines for setting up Automatic Waether Stations (AWSs) and Automatic Rain Gauge (ARGs) & their accreditation, standardization, validation and quality management of weather data. The Committee has submitted draft report covering following aspects:

• AWS equipment standards
• AWS installation standards & maintenance standards and
• Guidelines for 3rd party accreditation and data certification services.

Click here for Circular & Draft Guidelines.

Bringing the green revolution to eastern India has been a remarkable success. Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal have substantially increased their contribution to rice production. Therefore, support the Eastern Indian States has been extended with an allocation of 1000 crore in 2013-14.

The original Green Revolution States face the problem of stagnating yields and over-exploitation of water resources. The answer lies in crop diversification. Hence, in the recent Union Budget, a sum of 500 crore has been provided to start a programme of crop diversification that would promote technological innovation and encourage farmers to choose crop alternatives.

Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO), including Farmer Producer Companies (FPC), have emerged as aggregators of farm produce and link farmers directly to markets. To signal our support to them, the Government has decided to provide matching equity grants to registered FPOs upto a maximum of 10 lakh per FPO to enable them to leverage working capital from financial institutions. A sum of ₨ 50 crore has been earmarked for this purpose. Besides this, a Credit Guarantee Fund will also be created in the Small Farmers’ Agri Business Corporation with an initial corpus of ₨ 100 crore.

To save domestic oilseed growers in view of enhanced import shipments due to slump in international prices, the Government has decided to impose a Duty @2.5% on crude Soyabean and Palm Oil.

First Semi Annual Medium Term Agricultural Outlook and Situation Analysis Report

• Quarter-1: End of June-2012
• Quarter-2: End of Sep - 2012
• Quarter-3: End of Dec 2012

A pilot programme on Nutri-Farms for introducing new crop varieties that are rich in micro-nutrients such as iron-rich bajra, protein-rich maize and zinc-rich wheat, is being launched. A sum of upto ₨ 200 crore has been earmarked to start the pilots. It is hoped that agri businesses and farmers will come together to start a sufficient number of pilots in the districts, most affected by malnutrition.

In order to serve farmers in a better way, a Central Sector Scheme of National Crop Insurance Programme (NCIP) / Rashtriya Fasal Bima Karyakram (RFBK) has been formulated by merging MNAIS, WBCIS and CPIS.

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The National Conference on Agriculture for Rabi Campaign-2013 was organized on 24 and 25th September 2013 at NASC Complex, Pusa, New Delhi. The Conference was inaugurated by Shri Sharad Pawar, Hon’ble Union Minister of Agriculture and was also addressed by Shri Tariq Anwar, Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Agriculture & Food Processing Industries.

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As an initiative under Indo – German Development Cooperation, the Governments of India and Germany have extended their cooperation by establishing a Climate Change Knowledge Network in Indian Agriculture (CCKN-IA) in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA).

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National Conference on Agriculture for Rabi Compaign 2013 is scheduled to be held on 24th and 25th september 2013 at NASC Complex,New Delhi.

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Inclusion of organic manure specification in the FCO and inclusion of Acetobacter.

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6th National Seed Congress, 2013 is being organized from 12th -14th September, 2013 at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh by National Seed Research and Training Centre, Ministry of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture and Co-operation, Government of India in collaboration with Uttar Pradesh Beej Vikas Nigam and Department of Agriculture, Uttar Pradesh for benefit of Seed Sector of the Country.

Click here-Brochure for 6th National Seed Congress.

Click here-Technical Programme for 6th National Seed Congress.

Caution to Public: General Public is advised not to pay any security money against fraudulent job offers made by some criminal elements to fleece unemployed youth in the name of Kisan Call Centre or similar names.

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Fourth Advance Estimates of Food-grain Production in India have been released on July 22. As per this, total food-grain production in India during the crop-year 2012-13 is likely to be 255.36 million tonne. Corresponding figures for Rice and Wheat alone are likely to be 104.40 and 92.46 million tonne respective ly.

Click here for crop-wise and year-wise details.