Farm technologies are not reaching farmers on the ground, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh observed here on Monday and said “it represents the failure of the system.”
He was speaking at the Golden Jubilee convocation of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) here.
The annual farm growth rate was expected to be 3.5 per cent in the 12th Plan period ending this year, he said, but there was concern over the gap between crop yield per hectare and the achievable potential under ideal farming practices.
“It is the job of the administration to close this gap and our farm strategy must prioritise this effort,'' he pointed out.
“The 3.5 per cent per annum growth rate is commendable but we must improve upon it to reach 4 per cent or even higher in the 12th Plan,” he said, adding that this would require a determined effort by the Centre and the States.
The Prime Minister's remarks came after Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar presented him with a scroll conferring the honorary doctorate of science by the Institute. Mr. Pawar is president of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, IARI's parent body.
Dr. Singh said he was worried that the agriculture extension services system — responsible for taking the Green Revolution to the farmers — was no longer robust. There was a pressing need to revitalise it with the help of Krishi Vigyan Kendras, Agriculture Technology Management Agencies in collaboration with panchayats, farm scientists and district-level officials.
Stating that farm research was the key element in achieving higher expansion, he said the agricultural research system should be strengthened to meet future challenges in water and soil management, provision of farm credit and marketing support.
“One requirement is the financial resources. Our government is committed to raising research and development spending as a whole to at least 2 per cent of the GDP by the end of the 12th Plan from the current level of about one per cent,” he said.
The Prime Minister said policy initiatives in the farm sector had paid off as the country's food grain production this year was set to exceed a record 250 million tonnes.
It is estimated that the country would need an additional 50 million tonnes of food grain in the next 10 years to meet the domestic demand, he added.
Earlier, IARI Director H.S. Gupta pointed out that achieving parity with the global level of excellence was possible only if the Indian scientists enjoyed international level of investments to restore the weakening infrastructure.
Seeking parity of investments in research and development to two per cent of the GDP as in other developing countries such as Brazil and South Africa, he said: “Higher allocation could make best use of the public funds to ensure food and nutrition security and empower millions of Indian farmers.”
Keywords: agriculture sector, Indian GDP
If the central government is serious in walking the talk,first thing
is public spending on locally relevant R&D must increase substantially
with focus on innovation and simultaneously revitalize the current
extension system by altering the administrative set up ( have system
of reward with quantitative incremental growth in productivity)and for
this state agricultural departments need to be encouraged to adopt '
out of box'approach to current extension system including strong
encouragement in increasing the public-private sector partnership with
focus on access to knowledge (to farmers), access to market ,
developing infrastructure in rural areas to minimize post-harvest
losses. Only a strong & innovative leadership from the center to take
the key stake holders along will usher in new sustainable grren
revolution otherwise it will remain on paper !
I appreciate the efforts of our Indian scientists who have increased the agricultural
production of our country that cherries the postion of food security. The motivation
to improve the current extension and research system can be brought by involving
Information and communication technology at all the levels. However, I would
advocate to increase the efforts for "adaptive research".
I applaud the efforts taken by Indian Prime minister Dr Singh who has been always trying to put India in the forefront of global agriculture.We already have produced the best varieties in Cereals, pulses, oilseeds, fruits,v egetables and flowers both by traditional plant breeding as well as modern technologies. Our main problem is we are very good planners for our farming community and nation's food security but we are not good implementers of our plans.That is the reason our technologies invented by scientists do not reach out to farmers .We also do not evaluate why things are not implemented properly as planned out in previous 11 5-years plan.In the 12 th plan,we would see better results only if learn from our mistakes in previous 11 plans,otherwise earmarking public expenses @2% of GDP is of no use.It would be similar to case of new wine in old bottle.Three things Planning,Evaluation and Performance are critical to success of any policy in a democracy.
It's a misnomer that indian farmer is not putting best productive methods, he is trying his best in avilable resources and dynamics, and he is doing best to survive it's not a choice or luxury for him but a dire necesscity. problem is that his viability margin is being seqeezed, inflation has increased cost. any initiative to provide hom legitimate profit will automaticaly see a growth spurt much higher than the expectations of learned economists. MSP are exploitive in nature and that too are not given - mismanagement is from govt side, traders are taking the cream away.
why , At present farmers not getting MSP gov rotting food grains at godowns, why should we increase...?
It is funny and ironic that we are talking of 8-9% growth on GDP and 4% percent annual growth in a sector in which still two third population have stakes in. Nevertheless it is good to hear that policy makers keep it moderately ambitious. The policy should appropriately take care of the distribution even in this moderately set target [Cash crops Vs Food grains Vs subsidiaries]
I am totally with PM on the need to accelerate agriculture output.
There is a tremendous scope for increase if only agriculturist are
prepared to unshackle themselves from antiquated techniques and go
in for more modern and scientific techniques. In fact with so much
of our country blessed with abundant Sun, it is possible to
transform agricultural landscape by using proven and highly efficient drip irrigation with micro nutrition dispensation
technologies. We fortunately have few Universities of Agricultural
science doing commendable work in this direction.
Thanks for atleast looking into Agriculture. For the sake of Country, Please change the Agriculture Minister. Let him concentrate on Cricket and we need strong, vision oriented person for Agriculture Sector. 70% of population depends on Agriculture. We need to industralise the Agriculture sector, we need to protect small land owners, daily wagers of land workers, and also we need to provide better weather forecast for farmers, expert advice on the basis of soil testing to Farmers. Thanks
At last the Prime Minister seems to have realised that agriculture is an economic activity! However crocodile tears shed by the PM over the slow growth of agriculture will not provide the fertilizer needed to boost agricultural production.
as we can all see more then 60% of money is acquired from agriculture it
is good news for Indians that our economy is rising day by day..
and i wish it will increase more...
but it is also depend on our politicians that how they manage this
coming 5 years plan (i.e.2012-2017)
wish them best of luck...
Farmers Army can do the agricultural revolution, will change Indian economy in a high grade of development. India have lot of land without utilizing with modern technologies. Indian farmers are still using the out dated methods of cultivation. When the farmers use more manpower and more time, will lead them high expenditure and low profit. The Government have a good role to encourage our farmers to cultivate using modern technique, for cultivating and harvesting, arranging water facility with dams and canals, electricity, fertilizer, high yield seeds, so on. High production will leads to low price that will lead to save money for spending less amount in agriculture products, It will lead the people to save income from their daily wages. Government have to think how can bring the money from the people for the future development, encouraging people to invest in government sector through financial institutions/banks.
A govt which reads only the Sensex and gloat in the high development of the country where crores of people are affected by the high prices and lack of ANY FORM of DECENT existance should be ASHAMED in PREACHING.
The same P.M had - about a month ago - admitted that majority of Indian
Children are Undernourished. He has forgotten that hs party had the monoploy of Governing in India after 1947 - uninterrupted for decades
and has been responsible for this situation.
A govt.which - by it inefficiency and insensitivity - allowed thousands of tons of grain rotted when millions do not have even one meal a day
have no moral right to express grief over lack of Agriculture Growth.
While the sights are trained to attain double digit growth for industries and high business the Govt.let farmers down and they are forced to suicides and huge losses due to its failure to ensure the
produce are collected and stored properly and the person who stake all his assets and time on producing crops are saved
Perhaps, the government should bring in technologies to avoid post harvest losses. Value addition should be encouraged. Our country has its own local vegetables, fruits and cereals. The production and consumption of these should be encouraged. Agriculture should be sustained and farmers too.
I only wish this suggestion is not a precursor to inviting genetically modified seeds
into the agricultural sector so that the rout of the country is complete in all aspects.
Industry and Realty on fertile lands should be stopped.
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