Pitch for revival of agriculture sector through modernization

The Dollar Business Bureau The Union Minister of Agriculture Radha Mohan Singh on Thursday expressed the Government of India’s willingness to usher modern techniques in agriculture sector. Speaking on the 77^th meeting of the General Council of National Cooperative Development Corporation, the Union Minister emphasized on government’s interest towards modernization of farming practices for increased crop productivity.  Stating that the increased crop production is key for a vibrant agriculture sector, the Minister said the governmental schemes like 'Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yogna' for crop per drop, are aimed at increasing farming efficiency and crop productivity. The Minister further stressed on the role of agricultural cooperatives in key agri activities like improved post-harvest handling and processing, which are essential for ensuring value addition, reduction in wastage and transporting good quality products to markets. Further stating that the country is a leading producer of key commodities like cereals, fruits, vegetables, milk, among others, in view of growing grain stock and increase in production of high-value commodities, the Minister highlighted the need of improved market linkages. In this regard, the Minister called the cooperatives to play a key role in marketing and distribution of agricultural commodities. The Minister further laid focus on consolidation of the  existing infrastructure and units established by the cooperatives. He called for the implementation of the same especially for value addition, processing of farmers’ produce, strengthening of forward and backward linkages for procurement and marketing. Meanwhile, according to a latest release, the Department of Agriculture & Production has given nod for the Price Stabilisation Fund (PSF) as a Central Sector Scheme, with a corpus fund of Rs 500 crore. This is to support market interventions for price control of perishable agri-horticultural commodities. The PSF would be used to advance the interest free loan to the State governments and Central agencies and will further support their working capital and other expenses on procurement and distribution interventions for such commodities.  While the States would set up a revolving fund having equal contribution from both the Centre and State on 50:50 ratio, the contribution to the State level corpus in respect of North East States will be 75:25. According to the release, the revolving fund is being mooted so that requirements for all future interventions can be decided and met with at the State level itself.    

This article was published on March 27, 2015.