The Centre has taken various steps to control locust swarms, and carried out operations in over 1.5 lakh hectares area since April 11 to prevent crop losses. 
A Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO), formed by a group of farm producers, is a registered body with producers as shareholders of the organisation. It deals with business activities related to farm produce and works for the benefit of member producers. 
The recent reforms, including three ordinances to provide barrier-free trading platforms to farmers, are aimed at addressing the post-production challenges and ensuring better returns to farmers, said Ashok Dalwai, CEO of the National Rainfed Area Authority under the agriculture ministry. 
"We have procured 38.98 million tonnes of wheat so far. The procurement operations are almost complete in major states. Few thousand tonnes more will be brought in the next few days," a senior FCI official told . 
The last few months have brought game-changing and speedy reforms. These include amendment in the Essential Commodities Act (ECA) and the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020. 
The Agri-Infra Fund was part of the Rs 20 lakh crore stimulus package announced in response to the COVID-19 disaster. Briefing the media about the cabinet decisions, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said: "It is a historic decision. This will further the agriculture sector."
In the first four months of 2020, India produced 113.36 million kg of tea, down 40% from a year ago because of lower production in March and April, the board said in a statement.
Agriculture and allied activities are expected to grow 2-3% in the ongoing fiscal year, on the back of favourable government policies and forecast of a normal monsoon, after a 4% expansion in fiscal 2020. Overall, the economy is forecast to contract up to 7% in fiscal 2021, indicating a deep decline in industry and services.
In its latest update on Friday, the FAO said spring-bred locust swarms, which migrated to Indo-Pakistan border and travelled east to northern states, are expected to return back to Rajasthan with the start of the monsoon in coming days. 
Rice, grown across 40% of the total area during the kharif season, is up 39%, while oilseeds area has increased by more than three times and cultivation of pulses has quadrupled.
The Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers’ (MoCF) directive comes amid the crucial Kharif cropping season and is aimed at promoting digital payments in the largely cash-dominated agricultural trade markets.
“Presently 60 control teams with spray vehicles are deployed in these states and more than 200 central government personnel are working together with state governments to curb the menace of locusts, which pose threat to crops,” said a senior agriculture ministry official. 
Around seven lakh landless cultivators will be benefited from the programme in the next two years, they said. The decision in this regard was taken at a high-level meeting presided over by chief secretary A K Tripathy on Thursday.
At the onset of the lockdown, KMF and 14 associate milk unions stared into the immediate challenge of not just collecting milk from farmers in 254,000 villages, but supplying to over 10 millions customers within Karnataka, and across the border.
Darjeeling tea planters have written to the customs department, Tea Board as well as the Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to stop entry of Nepalese teas into India without quality checks, alleging that these teas are being sold in the country as Darjeeling tea at lower prices. 
Cattle and buffaloes account for more than 50% of the livestock population in India, according to the latest census. The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) is aggressively promoting use of ethno-veterinary medicine after seeing success in a pilot project run at Sabarkantha dairy in Gujarat. 
A study report on annual marine fish landings estimates in the country during the last year released here by the CMFRI showed that Tamil Nadu took the first position with 7.75 lakh tonnes followed by Gujarat at 7.49 lakh tonnes. Gujarat was holding the first position for the past few years. Kerala (5.44 lakh tonnes) retained the third position. 
Amul brand required an infrastructure that can support data-intensive and demanding workloads. The cooperative giant’s faith and steady investment in latest technology over the past 10 years has helped it wither the lockdown storm with little or no pain to dairy farmers or consumers.
India is the first country in the world to utilise drones in anti-locust operations and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has lauded the agriculture department’s work in fighting locusts using the latest technology. 
The broad specification comes a little over one month after India’s civil aviation regulator granted the agriculture ministry conditional exemption to use drones in anti-locust operations, making India the first country to do so.
