The three Acts pertaining to the farm sector enacted recently were a significant step towards implementing the recommendations made by the Swaminathan Commission in 2006, G.V.L. Narasimha Rao, BJP MP and Spices Board’s chilli task force chairman, said on Thursday.
“Farmers stand to gain from these new pieces of legislation, which facilitate adoption of advanced technologies and remove bottlenecks in the supply chain, besides ensuring remunerative prices,” Mr. Narasimha Rao asserted while interacting with the chilli farmers at the market yard in Guntur.
‘Middlemen eliminated’
Mr. Narasimha Rao said chilli and tobacco were major crops in Guntur and Prakasam districts, and that the Farmer Producers Organisations (FPOs), to which the Centre accorded high priority, would be of immense help in earning decent returns.
“This is due to the elimination of middlemen, who have been a bane for farmers,” he observed.
Up to 1,000 farmers can join the FPOs. The Central government will extend a financial support of ₹25 lakh to each FPO for the first four years and scale up assistance through other means subsequently.
Mr. Narasimha Rao said the fear that the new laws would rob Agriculture Produce Market Committees of their autonomy was misplaced as they were not being meddled with.
“Henceforth, farmers can sell the produce through the Electronic National Agriculture Market without much difficulty. They can even trade their commodities anywhere in the country,” he added.
Necessary steps were taken for augmenting the value of commodities, particularly the perishable ones, and, thereby, enable the farmers to fetch minimum returns, he added.
Tobacco Board Chairman Y. Raghunath Babu, Guntur chilli yard chairman Chandragiri Yesu Ratnam and BJP State vice-president Ravela Kishore Babu were among those present.
