Daily Current Affairs

August 7, 2025

Current Affairs

The Rise of Herbicides 

Context: India’s crop protection chemical industry is undergoing a significant transformation, marked by the rapid growth of the herbicide segment.

Relevance of the Topic: Prelims: Crop protection chemicals (insecticides, fungicides, herbicides), Agricultural labour trends. 

Crop Protection Chemicals

  • Crop protection chemicals, commonly known as pesticides are substances used to protect crops from:
    • Insects (insecticides) E.g., White-backed plant hopper in paddy.
    • Fungal diseases (fungicides) E.g., Blast and sheath blight in rice.
    • Weeds (herbicides) Unwanted plants that compete with crops for resources.
  • These chemicals ensure improved crop health, higher productivity, and reduced input losses.

Current Market Snapshot

  • Total Organised Market Size : ₹24,500 crore (approx.)
  • Segment-wise Breakdown : 
    • Insecticides ₹10,700 crore
    • Herbicides ₹8,200 crore
    • Fungicides ₹5,600 crore
  • Herbicides are the fastest-growing segment, with over 10% annual growth, driven by labour shortages and evolving agricultural practices.
  • The market is heavily dominated by multinational corporations, with limited domestic presence: Bayer (15%, Germany), Syngenta and ADAMA, both owned by China’s Sinochem, Corteva (USA) etc. 
  • However, the herbicide segment has Indian players too, such as Dhanuka Agritech (estimated 6% share) and Crystal Crop Protection Ltd. 
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 Why is the usage of Herbicides booming?

  • Labour Shortage and Rising Wages:
    • Manual weeding is time-intensive (8-10 hours/acre).
    • Labour costs have risen from ₹326.2 (2019) to ₹447.6 (2024).
    • Availability of rural labour for strenuous manual work is declining.
  • Limitations of Mechanical Weeders: Power weeders are not effective in densely planted or deep-rooted weed areas.
  • Herbicides as Labour-saving Technology: Like tractors and harvesters, herbicides are seen as substitutes for manual labour.
  • Cost Comparison: Manual weeding (₹2,000+ per acre) is comparatively more expensive than using chemical herbicide (E.g., Sikosa): ₹850-900 per acre. 
  • Changing Patterns in Herbicide Usage
    • Traditional Practice: Post-emergent application – applied after weeds appear.
    • New Trend: Pre-emergent herbicides - Prevent weeds from sprouting.
    • Early post-emergent: Target weeds at early crop growth stage.
    • Pre-emergent herbicides account for ₹550 crore in ₹1,500 crore paddy herbicide market and 20% of ₹1,000 crore wheat herbicide market

This preventive approach marks a shift from reactive farming to strategic input use.

Challenges & Concerns: 

  • Multinational Monopoly: Unlike seeds and fertilisers (where Indian public/private players exist), the pesticide industry remains largely foreign-dominated. Sinochem Holdings Corporation (China) owns Syngenta & ADAMA; India lacks a comparable domestic giant.
  • Dependence on Imports: Heavy reliance on imported active ingredients and technologies. Need to strengthen indigenous R&D in crop chemistry.
  • Ecological Risks: Misuse of herbicides can harm non-target species, contaminate soil and water.Growing concerns about Paraquat toxicity and herbicide-resistant weeds.

Way Forward

  • Encourage indigenous innovation in agri-chemicals.
  • Incentivise public-private partnerships for research in biopesticides and sustainable crop protection.
  • Promote judicious use of herbicides with farmer education and regulation.

India’s pesticide market is shifting towards herbicides due to labour shortages and cost efficiency. While MNCs dominate, Indian firms are gaining ground through innovation. Strengthening local R&D and ensuring environmental safety are key to sustainable growth.

National Cooperative Policy 2025

Context: The Central Government has unveiled the National Cooperative Policy 2025. The government has urged States to announce their own cooperative policies by January 31, 2026, in alignment with the National Cooperative Policy. 

Relevance of the Topic:Mains: National Cooperative Policy 2025; Cooperatives: Benefits and Challenges. 

What are Cooperatives?

  • A cooperative is a voluntary association of individuals with common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations, who come together to pool resources for mutual benefit. It functions on democratic principles and emphasises collective ownership, shared profits, and participatory decision-making.
  • The 97th Constitutional Amendment (2011) gave constitutional recognition to cooperatives, adding Part IXB to the Constitution and inserting the term "Cooperatives" in Article 19(1)(c).
  • Types of Cooperatives: Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS); Dairy cooperatives, Fisheries cooperatives, Urban Cooperative Banks, etc.
  • There are over 8.6 lakh registered cooperative societies in India covering 30 crore members, covering 99% of villages and 71% of rural households. 

Benefits of Cooperatives:  

  • Economic Inclusion: Help small farmers, artisans, and rural entrepreneurs access markets and finance.
  • Job Creation and Democratic Empowerment: Ensure grassroots participation in economic activities. With over 30 crore members, cooperatives remain a key socio-economic driver, especially in rural India.
  • Rural Development: Cooperatives enable rural credit, dairy, storage, and agro-processing.
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Challenges (As per Shivaji Rao Patil Committee): 

  • Lack of participatory character: Free rider problem where inactive members benefit without contribution. Dominated by elite members and politicians.
  • Restricted Coverage and Role: 
    • Equity infusion by the government enables the government to appoint board of directors leading to poor autonomy.  
    • State Cooperative Acts allow postponing elections and superseding boards. 
  • Regional Skew: Cooperatives are successful only in a few states like Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra. Limited to single-purpose societies like PACs, reducing viability. 
  • Governance related issues: Poor regulation by Registrar of Cooperative Societies. Prevalence of Financial fraud, corruption etc.  
  • Lack of adequate capital as cooperatives cannot raise money from capital markets. Poor use of technology and lack of professional management. 

Government Initiatives for Cooperative Sector:  

  • Creation of Ministry of Cooperation (2021) to streamline cooperative growth, policymaking, and digitisation. 
  • Computerisation of PACs. 
  • Income tax relief: Reduction in MAT from 18% to 15% in Union Budget 2023-24. 
  • National Cooperative Database launched to create a real-time, unified registry of all cooperative societies. 
  • Banking Regulation (Amendment) Act, 2020 to strengthen regulation of urban cooperative banks. 
  • Cooperatives as buyers on GeM portal (Government e-Marketplace). 

National Cooperative Policy 2025:

  • Vision: To contribute to India’s collective ambition of becoming ‘Viksit' by 2047 through sustainable cooperative development.
  • Mission:
    • To create an enabling legal, economic, and institutional framework that will strengthen and deepen cooperative movement at grassroots level.
    • To facilitate transformation of cooperative enterprises into professionally managed, transparent, technology-enabled, vibrant, and responsive economic entities.
  • Need for a New Policy: The last cooperative policy was framed in 2002 which was outdated due to the radical shifts brought on by globalisation, digitisation, and socio-economic transformation.
image 9

Key Highlights of National Cooperative Policy 2025:

Legislative and Institutional Reforms

  • Encourage States to amend cooperative laws (Cooperative Societies Acts and Rules) to enhance transparency, autonomy and ease of doing business.
  • Promote digitalisation of registrar offices and real-time cooperative databases.
  • Revive sick cooperatives with institutional mechanisms.

Financial Empowerment

  • Preserve and promote the three-tier Primary Agriculture Credit Societies (PACS) - District Central Cooperative Bank - State Cooperative Bank credit structure.
  • Promote cooperative banks and umbrella organisations (like National Urban Cooperative Finance & Development Corporation).
  • Enable cooperative banks to handle government businesses.

Business Ecosystem Development: 

  • Model cooperative villages with multipurpose PACS as growth engines.
  • Encouraging States/UTs to develop at least one model cooperative village.
  • Develop rural economic clusters (E.g., honey, spices, tea).

Future-Readiness & Technology: 

  • Develop a national ‘Cooperative Stack’ integrating with Agri-stack and databases.
  • Promote Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) and Government e-marketplace (GeM) platform integration.
  • Encourage research and innovation through cooperative incubators and Centres of Excellence.

Inclusivity Measures: 

  • Active participation of youth, women, SC/STs, and differently-abled in cooperatives.
  • Model bye-laws for gender representation and transparent governance.

Sectoral Diversification: 

Promote cooperatives in new and emerging sectors such as:

  • Renewable energy,
  • Waste management,
  • Health and education,
  • Mobile-based aggregator services (E.g., for plumbers, taxi drivers),
  • Organic and natural farming,
  • Biogas and ethanol production, etc.

Implementation and Monitoring

A robust multi-tier implementation structure is proposed:

  • Implementation Cell within the Ministry of Cooperation with technical Project Management Unit support for effective and timely implementation of the policy.
  • The National Steering Committee on Cooperation Policy chaired by the Union Cooperation Minister will be constituted for overall guidance, inter-ministerial coordination, periodic policy review, etc.
  • Policy Implementation and Monitoring Committee headed by the Union Cooperation Secretary for coordination with States, troubleshooting implementation bottlenecks, periodic monitoring and evaluation, etc.

What is the Potential of Biochar?

Context: India plans to launch its carbon market in 2026 aiming to reduce carbon emissions. Among the potential carbon removal technologies, Biochar has emerged as a promising option.

Relevance of the Topic: Prelims: Concept of Biochar. 
Mains: Biochar: What, potential, benefits, challenges.

What is Biochar? 

  • Biochar is a type of charcoal rich in carbon produced from pyrolysis of biomass (agricultural residue, municipal solid waste) under limited or no oxygen conditions. It offers a sustainable alternative to manage waste and capture carbon. 
image 8

India generates over 600 million metric tonnes of agricultural residue and over 60 million tonnes of municipal solid waste every year. A significant portion of both is burnt openly or dumped in landfills, leading to air pollution from particulate matter and greenhouse gases such as methane, nitrous oxide, and CO2. 

Utility of Biochar

  • Waste management: By using 30% to 50% of surplus waste, India can produce 15-26 million tonnes of biochar and remove 0.1 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent annually. 
  • Byproducts of biochar production, such as syngas (20-30 million tonnes) and bio-oil (24-40 million tonnes), can generate additional electricity and fuels.
    • Utilising syngas could generate around 8-13 TWh of power, equivalent to 0.5-0.7% of India’s annual electricity generation, replacing 0.4-0.7 million tonnes of coal per year.
    • Bio-oil can potentially offset 12-19 million tonnes (or 8%) of diesel or kerosene production annually, leading to lower crude oil imports and reducing more than 2% of India’s total fossil-fuel-based emissions.
  • Carbon sink: Biochar can hold carbon in the soil for 100-1,000 years due to its strong and stable characteristics, making it an effective long-term carbon sink. 
  • Agriculture: 
    • Applying biochar can improve water retention, particularly in semi-dry and nutrient-depleted soils. This can abate nitrous oxide emissions by 30-50%.
    • Biochar can also enhance soil organic carbon helping restore degraded soils.
  • Industrial sector: In carbon capture applications, modified biochar can adsorb CO2 from industrial exhaust gases. 
  • Construction sector:
    • Biochar can be explored as a low-carbon alternative to building materials.
    • Adding 2-5% of biochar to concrete can improve mechanical strength, increase heat resistance by 20%, and capture 115 kg of CO2 per cubic metre, making building materials a stable carbon sink.
  • Wastewater treatment: Biochar offers a low-cost and effective option to reduce pollution. India generates more than 70 billion litres of wastewater every day, of which 72% is left untreated. A kilogram of biochar along with other substances can treat 200-500 litres of wastewater, implying a biochar demand potential of 2.5-6.3 million tonnes. 

What hinders Biochar’s Application? 

Despite its theoretically substantial potential to capture carbon, biochar remains underrepresented in carbon credit systems due to: 

  • Absence of standardised feedstock markets and consistent carbon accounting methods, which undermine investor confidence. 
  • Barriers such as limited resources, evolving technologies, market uncertainties, and insufficient policy support. 
  • Viable business models are yet to emerge for large-scale adoption. Market development is further constrained by:
    • limited awareness among stakeholders, 
    • weak ‘monitoring, reporting, verification’ frameworks, and
    • lack of coordination across areas such as agriculture, energy, and climate policy.

Way Forward

To enable large-scale adoption : 

  • Sustained support for R&D is essential to create region-specific feedstock standards and to optimize biomass utilisation rates based on agro-climatic zones and crop types.
  • Biochar should be systematically integrated into existing and upcoming frameworks, including crop residue management schemes, bioenergy initiatives in both urban and rural contexts, and state-level climate strategies under the State Action Plans on Climate Change. 
  • Recognising biochar as a verifiable carbon removal pathway within the Indian carbon market will generate additional income for investors and farmers through carbon credits. 
  • Deploying biochar production equipment at the village level has the potential to create approximately 5.2 lakh rural jobs, linking climate action with inclusive economic development.
  • The additional benefits of biochar, such as better soil health, lower fertilizer requirement (by 10-20%), and higher crop yield (by 10-25%), should be systematically integrated into policy and market frameworks to fully realise its potential.

Biochar, though not a silver bullet, offers a science-backed multisectoral pathway for India to achieve its climate and development goals.

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