| Subsidies as well as easy financing by financial institutions give a fillip to the sector |
| Business Standard - Vijay C Roy / Chandigarh Feb 21, 2012, 00:55 IST Farm equipment manufacturers in the northern region, especially SMEs and their vendors, are upbeat over the robust demand for farm equipment in the domestic market. They are betting big on the Indian farm mechanisation market, which is estimated at over Rs 4,000 crore a year (excluding tractors). There are over 400 SME manufacturers and vendors in the northern region, comprising Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Some of the SMEs market their product under their own brand name while others sell to large established players. Using indigenous technology and with the help of competitive pricing, these manufacturers cater to the domestic market as well as export to Sri Lanka, Nepal, Iraq, Iran and the southern African countries. According to analysts, labour shortages, subsidies by both Central and state governments as well as easy financing by financial institutions have given a boost to this sector, which is witnessing 20-25 per cent year-on-year growth. Sonalika Agro Industries Corporation Director Rajesh Thakur said, “The farm mechanisation sector has witnessed rapid growth in rural areas in the recent past, because of labour shortages. It is quality, competitive pricing and service which are driving the growth of manufacturers based in the northern region.” Farm mechanisation has been promoted vigorously by the Central and state governments. Farm implements that recently have been made eligible for bank financing, in addition to existing implements, include multi-crop threshers, sadd drills, rotavator bed planters, tractor-mounted sprayers, potato diggers (manual and automatic), caster threshers, sugarcane cutters and planters. The state governments provide a subsidy on the purchase of these machines that can go up to 50 per cent, depending on the machine. In Punjab alone, according to the “state focus” prepared by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), the credit requirement for farm mechanisation in 2012-13 is estimated at Rs 1,748 crore (including tractors). This makes farm mechanisation the third-largest sector in the state in terms of credit requirement, after crop loans and dairy development. Farm mechanisation in Punjab had until recently been a “tractorisation” process, as the state had about 492,000 registered tractors as on March 31, 2009. However, the use of other kinds of farm equipment – power tillers, bullock/tractor drawn implements, reapers, threshers, cleaners/graders, zero-till seed-cum-fertiliser drills, raised-bed planters, reapers and rotavators – has also increased significantly over the last few years, making it an attractive sector for manufacturers. In Haryana farm mechanisation is a Rs 1,000 crore market. The managing director of Haryana-based Ashoka Foundry & Engineering Works, Kapil Gupta, said, “We have been doing very well over the last few years. In order to meet the robust demand, we are expanding our manufacturing capacity.” His company manufactures agricultural equipments such as automatic and semi-automatic potato planters, seed-cum-fertiliser drills, sugar trench planters, tillage equipment and sugarcane cutter and planters. Analysts said the factors driving the growth of farm mechanisation in the northern region are high quality, low cost and trouble-free maintenance. Punjab has about 40-60 farm implement manufacturers that focus on the complete value chain of farm mechanisation solutions and cater to both the domestic and the international market. |
February 21, 2012
Farm equipment makers are upbeat over robust demand
February 19, 2012
Godown rule to cover vegetables, fruits
| Warehousing law amendment on cards to allow farmers use storage receipts as security for bank loans |
| Business Standard = Sanjeeb Mukherjee / New Delhi Feb 19, 2012, 00:31 IST WARM COVER * Warehouse law to also cover perishables such as fruit and vegetables * Norms to be prepared for registration and accreditation of cold storage * Farmers can store at the warehouses when prices fall and take bank loans against the storage receipts, which are also tradable * Step to address the huge proportion of produce that is left to rot due to lack of storage Scenes of potato and tomato growers dumping their produce on the roads in some parts of the country recently, after prices fell sharply, may be less visible if the agriculture ministry succeeds in implementing a new idea. To prevent distress sales, the ministry is working on a proposal to enable growers of perishable produce such as fruit and vegetables to get bank loans against commodities stored by them in designated warehouses and godowns. To make this effective, perishable commodities would be brought under the ambit of negotiable warehouse receipts. At present, such negotiable receipts can be had only against non-perishable food items such as grain and cereal stored in warehouses and godowns accredited by the Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority (WDRA). Negotiable warehouses receipts (NWRs) enable a grower to store produce in times of falling prices and get a bank loan on the receipt. Such a practice could be a boon for farmers when prices fall sharply. Potato prices in “WDRA has been urged to start giving recognition to cold storage, so that negotiable receipts can be issued against the perishable commodities stored in these,” Agriculture Secretary P K Basu told Business Standard. He said this would go a long way in preventing distress sales among fruit and vegetable farmers and promote steady growth of cold chains and modern storage facilities. WDRA-recognised warehouses need to have modern facilities like pest control and fumigation, fire-fighting equipment, standardised construction and weighing equipment. The receipts issued by such recognised warehouses and cold storage are accepted by the government and banks can easily give loans on these. “We are in the process of adding a new chapter in the WDRA Act that will facilitate registration and accreditation of temperature-controlled warehouses like cold storage and also types of commodities for which NWRs can be issued. There has to be due diligence before norms are finalised, as cold storage are different from simple warehouses,” said Dinesh Rai, chairman of WDRA. Since October 2011 when WDRA was set up, around 3,000 NWRs have been issued by 300 accredited warehouses and godowns, against which Rs 25-30 crore of bank loan has been given to farmers. The value of goods stored in such warehouses is around Rs 100 crore. Officials said that not all farmers who got negotiable receipts against their produce availed of bank loans, as they might not be in need of money or might have traded the NWR further. Once WDRA starts granting recognition to cold storage, a standardised system for them could be developed, Basu said. In |
US buyer turns to ‘spicy' Indian onion
The Hindu businessline CHENNAI, FEB. 13:
Indian onion may be considered pungent than the ones grown elsewhere in the world. Some even term it ‘spicy' onion.
But it is the pungency that has turned a US buyer towards it.
“We have got enquiries from a US buyer for our onion. We have been asked to send a sample consignment,” said Mr Rupesh Jaju, Director of Nashik-based United Pacific Agro Pvt Ltd.
Asked what made the buyer look to Indian onion, he said: “It is because of our pungency”.
Indian onion, however, is unlikely to be sold in the US. “The buyer has said there will be no need for quarantine or other certification process. It will be stored and processed in a warehouse,” he said.
NEW MARKETS?
The onion, most probably, could find its way into markets such as Mexico or Panama around the US. Or it could even be processed into a value-added product for sale in the US itself, according to trade sources.
“Indian onion cannot get into the US as it is a large producer,” said Mr Jaju.
According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation, the US is the third largest producer, after India, producing over three million tonnes of onion.
More than that, the US has stringent quarantine norms in place that could make it difficult for Indian onion to enter that country.
“The US buyer will test the sample consignment and after that could place order for one or two containers. It will be a breakthrough if we get orders since we have never exported onion to the US,” said Mr Jaju.
During April-January period of the current fiscal, 11.98 lakh tonnes of onion were exported at a unit price of Rs 12,500 a tonne. In the previous fiscal, totally 13.40 lakh tonnes were shipped out of the country at a unit price of Rs 16,103 a tonne.
Exports mainly go to the Gulf, Malaysia, Singapore and Europe. If the US buyer comes forward to buy Indian onion, it will be first time that the vegetable will cross the Atlantic Ocean.
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