SHILLONG: Union Minister for Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Radha Mohan Singh, on Monday lamented that farmers in the country continue to be in the same position even after 68 years of independence.
Addressing a function here after inaugurating the academic building of the College of Post Graduate Studies, Central Agricultural University (CAU), Umiam, Singh said, “The Prime Minister had made it very clear that India cannot be developed without the North East getting developed.”
The minister also slammed the Assam government over its alleged demand of Rs 1.60 lakh per bigha for handing over land to the Union government for construction of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in Kamrup, Assam.
“The Assam Government is the government of businessman,” he stated.
Stating that governments in other states often give land for Central projects for free, he said that the Assam government was doing injustice for the farmers.
“Leaders often give lectures and slogans about farmers but I am sad about what is happening in Assam,” he said.
He also said that the Union government had made a similar proposal for another institute in Assam and once again the Assam government demanded a huge sum of money for the land.
He observed that population in the country is increasing but farming land will not increase. “With the use of new technologies, we can at least increase the production,” he added.
According to the minister, the Union government is keen to finish the process of distributing soil health card to ensure that the soil is not damaged.
He also said that most of the Northeastern states are now promoting organic farming which is good even as he added that the use of chemical fertilizers should be minimized if it cannot be stopped completely.
The minister during his visit to ICAR also inaugurated the Advance Research Facility under National Innovations on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) Project, Central Research Laboratory of ICAR Research Complex NEH Region, Umiam.
He also held interactions with the farmers and visited the research farms of the Institute, besides participating in a consultative meeting.
‘NE has tremendous potential’
Claiming that the North East had tremendous potential for development of the horticulture sector, the minister spoke on the need to ensure focused attention for harnessing available potential through scaling up ongoing interventions under various schemes.
Addressing the meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare on Horticulture Development in India, here on Monday, he said the challenge is to complement the sector with food processing, agro logistics, agri-business, input related services and agricultural lending.
Referring to the challenges faced by horticulture crops, the minister suggested that grower associations and farmer producer organisations should also be taken on board from planting material to post harvest management and issues of logistics and price discovery.
The minister said setting up of market infrastructure has been linked with reforms in APMC Act for permitting direct marketing of horticulture produce.
“Although we have achieved a substantial breakthrough in production, the challenge lies in converting this into gains for farmer. We still have a long way to go in establishing a robust cold chain system from farm to fork. Creation of infrastructure for post harvest management and value addition therefore are a high priority area with focus on creating cold chain networks,” he said.
