Open Forum
New
Delhi, 12 January 2017
Diversifying
Agriculture
RAISING
FARMERS INCOME VITAL
By Dhurjati
Mukherjee
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley recently
called for focusing on higher agricultural productivity through the use of
latest technology and high-yielding crop varieties to help double farmers’
income by 2022. He also stated the need to revisit the incentive structure of
farming, besides focusing on reducing wastage and improving the marketing of
farm produce while speaking at his first pre-Budget consultative meeting with
representatives of agricultural groups. These possibly would be incorporated in
the 15-year vision document which the Niti Aayog is preparing and expected to
be released early this year.
In an endeavour to make agriculture
high-value, farm experts recently suggested encouraging States to undertake
reforms, create corpus fund for promoting farm mechanisation and micro
irrigation and provide interest subvention for term loans, among others, to
greatly increase incomes within the next five years.
Though after the much talked green
revolution, white revolution helped in increasing milk production and yellow
revolution increased cropped area of oilseeds, there is still scope of
increasing all-round production to cope up with the huge population increase.
There is need for people to treat agriculture as a profession, in the true
sense of the term, and carry out activities accordingly. Meanwhile, steps have
been initiated by the Government to address two major areas – soil health and
water conservation -- critical to improved agricultural production and
productivity.
Thus it goes without saying that
agricultural incomes have to be given a boost to make it lucrative and ensure
higher returns for the farming community. Apart from increasing productivity,
diversification of agriculture is also a very viable need. For all this to
become successful scientific inputs and technological support is obviously
necessary. Though there has been very little that has been done over the years,
presently some successful initiatives have been noted.
The lab-to-land approach has been in
the air for a long period but in reality this was not implemented. Those
sub-divisions and Blocks which received support and help from agricultural
universities considered themselves lucky but the spectre has changed a little in
the coming years with the NDA Government clearly directing IITs to take up
experimentation projects in the villages. This obviously augurs well for the
agricultural sector as the measures could help in higher output and diversion
plans.
Talking about diversification,
experts are of the opinion that crop diversification in rice field increases
the cropping intensity with additional returns and generate more employment
opportunities. It is particularly relevant to the rice fields of Assam as it is
the major crop which occupies 2.5 million hectares of land area.
One cannot deny the fact that
integration of horticultural plants with field crops such as rice and also
pulses become extremely important to achieve inclusive growth so that together
it can boost up production of the agriculture sector. The main objective for
this combination is to grow rice, pulse, kharif and rabi vegetables on the same
field during the same period of time, contributing towards nutritional security
and ensure soil sustainability in the long run.
Agricultural scientists rightly
pointed out that the main advantage is that vegetable crops grown on the soil
columns can make effective use of the resources applied on the rice fields with
reduced requirement of irrigation which makes it cost effective. Thus the
horticulture sector being an important component of high value agriculture, the
economic importance of the horticulture produce is rising over the years due to
the ever increasing demand both at national and international markets.
Another aspect of gearing up
productivity is the need for agri mechanisation that has recently emerged as a
strong driver of this sector. The sale of tractors has increased significantly
in the past few years while power tillers are widely used since they are
effective in smaller areas and reduce field levelling time considerably. The
demand for rice transplanters and laser land levellers are also expected to
increase in the coming years.
Thus diversification of the agri
sector with value addition in horticulture, floriculture and spices and on-farm
processing for production of various types of oil, both for the domestic and
export markets, is the need of the day so as to ensure higher incomes on a
sustained basis. One needs to mention here that oil seeds production of the
country is way below world average and needs to be given a boost with proper
usage of micronutrients and mechanisation apart from increasing processing
centres with latest technology.
Other than this, production of
fruits with an eye on the export market should also be given special attention.
It needs to be added here that the agricultural institutes should help the
small and medium farmers to increase all-round production and productivity,
specially of value added crops. Demonstration farms would bring in more
efficiency in helping increase output.
In fact a recent but unique
initiative by has come from Rajasthan. It is to come up with its first olive
oil brand in the country to reduce dependence on imports for edible oil. India imports
50 to 55 per cent of the edible oil needs and virtually all of it has urban
consumption, which is around 14,000 metric tonnes. The State has one thousand
hectares under cultivation which is planned to increase five times over the
next three years. According to sources, the idea came from Israel which was successful with olive
plantations in the Negev desert.
As per reports, famers have started
earning Rs 3-4 lakh per acre from olive cultivation against Rs 1 lakh growing
the traditional bajra or millet. As India would consume about 25,000
metric tonnes by the year 2020, which would rise further to 40,000 metric
tonnes by 2025, there is ample scope of emulating Rajasthan’s example in other States
and earning much more than their present income.
This is just one example of how
oilseeds production in the country could be substantially increased to cope up
with domestic demand and also bring down and steadily stop imports. Moreover,
the value received by increasing oilseeds production would help in raising incomes
of the farming community.
All efforts have to be made to
increase the incomes of the farming community through experimentation in
producing value-added crops. All round productivity increase has to be ensured
and it is understood that the support of the Government would be forthcoming,
whether in making available appropriate technology or in developing software
applications. Unless agriculture is tackled in a professional manner, the next
generation would lose interest in this sector which, which no doubt, has great
potential. ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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