agri economy

Agri-food startups to play a key role in developing self-reliant India: Shiksha Mantri

Agri-food startups to play a key role in developing self-reliant India: Shiksha Mantri

Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ flagged off the Agri-Food Techathon at IIT Kharagpur and also laid the foundation for Agri-Business Incubation Centre, which will incubate innovative ideas in the agriculture and food technology domain for creating Agri-preneures. Addressing the first Agri-Food Techathon organized by NABARD and IIT Kharagpur, Union Education Minister Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' said that the country's agricultural sector, including our farmers, our villages, are the pillars of self-reliant India. "If they remain strong then the foundation of self-reliant India will be strong and I believe that the role of agri-food startups will be very important in developing a…
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Automating sugarcane plantation to boost profitability

Automating sugarcane plantation to boost profitability

Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed devices for automating a range of functions for planting sugarcane buds, fitted with an autonomous fungicide application with the aim to reduce labour hours and raw material wastage.  Sugarcane is a global industrial crop popular for the production of sugar, bioenergy, paper, ethanol, electricity etc. The economic importance of the crop in India is paramount with the country registering 17% of global sugarcane production, second only to Brazil. But each year the farmers are losing excess cane stalk as seed material due to conventional cultivation practice which is also labour and time-intensive thus increasing…
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IIT KGP Forecasts Facilitating Farming Decisions

IIT KGP Forecasts Facilitating Farming Decisions

IIT Kharagpur's Gramin Krishi Mausam Sewa is forecasting climatic risks and advising farmers for better agricultural decision-making Hindustan Times       Live Mint        India Blooms        News 18 (Hindi)         Careers360        The Week      Outlook         News Nation      USA Science News             Financial Express        Republic World       Navbharat Times      The Arunachal Times       Deccan Herald Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed an advanced weather prediction system to facilitate better decision making in agricultural production and reduction of…
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Transforming Rural Economies

Transforming Rural Economies

COVID-19 has given a clarion call for a technology-enabled world, more so in the context of the Indian rural sector which has always stayed several steps behind the urban way of living. The slow progress could be attributed to not just lack of financial resources but also towards weak communication of functional knowledge, for a large population lacking literacy (M: 80.9%, F: 64.6%), and reliance on western technologies failing to cater to the requirements of the rural population of India. Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have come forward to bridge this gap by rolling out farming technologies as well as non-farming…
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