Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said here on Friday that to tackle problems due to the deficit monsoon, the Union government had taken steps such as increasing the seed subsidy, providing additional assistance for horticulture crops and waiving the import duty on oil cakes.
At a press conference listing his Ministry’s work during the first 100 days of the Modi government, he said these steps and success in digitisation and use of technology to provide information to farmers were major achievements. He said that to increase the crop yield and promote agriculture research, more agriculture universities had been set up and soil health cards provided. Plans were on to increase milk yield of indigenous breeds of cattle under the Rs. 150-crore Rashtriya Gokul Mission.
The Minister said the government had drawn up drought contingency plans for 571 districts with help from the Central Institute for Dryland Agriculture. The government aimed to achieve production of 94 million tonnes of wheat, 14 million tonnes of Rabi paddy, 12.5 million tonnes of pulses, and 11 million tonnes of oilseeds.
“The Prime Minister is very keen on using science and innovation to promote agriculture. We will have a ‘Lab to Land’ approach so that latest innovations reach farmers. New agriculture science centres in Assam and Jharkhand will work on 56 new varieties of foodgrains, fruits and vegetables,” Mr. Singh said.
“The government has achieved unparalleled success in the use of IT to reach farmers. Over 32 crore agriculture-based advisories were sent to farmers in the last 100 days, almost equal to the number sent between July 2013 and May 2014.” The government prepared a scheme to distribute three crore soil health cards this year, which would be increased to 5.5 crore next year.
