Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Gajendra Singh Shekhawat has suggested that processing (value addition) of foodgrains and oilseeds at the farm gate should be the first step in doubling the farmers’ income.
Pointing out that the value addition of agriculture production was happening at the farm gate in many western countries, the Union Minister said here on Saturday that such initiatives would also help the country save on foreign exchange since the trade gap in oilseeds/ edible oils was very high. Against the exports of ₹28,000 crore, the import bill was about ₹73,000 crore, he noted.
Speaking at the inaugural session of the two-day national seminar on the Road Map of Vegetable Oil Production by 2022 organised jointly by the Agriculture Ministry and ICAR-Indian Institute of Oilseeds Research (IIOR), Mr. Shekhawat said there was no capacity building in agriculture sector for long although the country was the world’s largest producer of foodgrains, pulses, horticulture, milk, meat, poultry and seafood.
“We need to focus on adapting the impacts of climate change for sustainability as it has been posing a great challenge in foodgrains production. A shift in the production of foodgrains from production-centric by abusing the resources is the need of the hour since we have to take care of rising temperatures, declining water resources and organic carbon reserves,” the Union Minister said.
He inaugurated an exhibition and released agriculture almanac for 2018-19 published by Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University earlier.
Chief Executive Officer of National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA) Ashok Dalwai said the extent of permanent and temporary fallow lands was very high in the country at 25 million hectares and the arable area was also coming down slowly from 141 million ha due to increasing use of land for developmental needs. He suggested improving the production of pulses, oilseeds and millets in the rain-fed areas.
He felt that the shortage of oilseeds could be addressed by increasing production, improving marketing support and creating awareness among people on the need to reduce consumption of vegetable oils. He stated that the per capita consumption of edible oils was about 18 kg now and it was expected to increase to 22 kg by 2022.
Deputy Director General of ICAR A.K. Singh, Union Agriculture Commissioner S.K. Malhotra, Joint Secretary in the Agriculture Ministry B. Rajender, Vice Chancellor of PJTSAU V. Praveen Rao and Director of IIOR A. Vishnuvardhan Reddy spoke.
