States Asked to be Ready to Deal with Situation Arising Out of Any Type of Monsoon Scenario

Necessary Arrangements in Place to Ensure Adequate Supply of Fertilizers to the States for Kharif Season

Focus to Remain on Eastern India for Increasing Agricultural Production

Kharif Conference-2012 has asked the State Governments to keep themselves ready to deal with any situation even if monsoon rainfall is not normal.

In the two day Conference which was held here earlier this week, the emphasis was on tapping the immense potential of Eastern India for increasing agricultural production. For this, focus will be on the implementation of National Food Security Mission (NFSM) and Bringing Green Revolution to Eastern India (BGREI) Schemes.

States were also informed that availability of fertilizers should not be a major issue this year as Central Government has made necessary tie up arrangements to ensure adequate supply of fertilizers to the States during the ensuing Kharif season.

Shri Sharad Pawar, Minister of Agriculture, interacted with the State representatives and scientists. He commended the tireless efforts of the farming community and support and initiatives of Central and State Governments in achieving estimated food grain production of 250.42 million tonnes during 2011-12 the highest ever, contributed by record production of wheat and rice. The Minister, however, cautioned that in order to meet the future demands and for sustainable growth in agricultural production in the coming years, we shall have to negotiate with the increasing pressure on water resources, soil health, supply constraints on farm labour in the backdrop of successful implementation of MNREGA and impact of climate change on agriculture etc. To bring horticulture development at the central stage, he informed the participants that 2012 is being observed as the year of horticulture and appealed to all the States to provide more focused attention for successful implementation of various horticulture programmes in the country.

He mentioned that the Government of India is revisiting RKVY to give more flexibility to States on the use of RKVY funds for development of agri-infrastructure in a planned manner. He therefore, urged the States to formulate State-specific infrastructure development plans and work on agriculture reforms policy to boost development of agriculture and allied sectors and achieve targeted growth rate of 4 percent in the sector.

-2- In his address, Minister of State for Agriculture congratulated State Governments for providing all their help and support to the farming community in achieving the record foodgrains production in the country. Highlighting the efforts of the Government to ensure remunerative prices for farmers, he mentioned that the Government has substantially increased Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) of various agricultural crops such as paddy, wheat, barley, arhar, moong and groundnut. In view of limited land resources, he emphasized that the State Governments need to focus on improving the productivity of crops to meet the ever-increasing demand of foodgrains.

Agriculture Secretary, Shri P.K. Basu, urged the State Governments to keep themselves in readiness to deal with the contingent situations, if monsoon rainfall is not upto the mark of last year.

Most of the States wanted that the scope of MNREGA scheme should be expanded to meet the labour cost of cultivation as some of the technologies such as implementation of System of Rice Intensification (SRI) are quite labour intensive.

A presentation was made on the scheme “Public Private Partnership for Integrated Agricultural Development (PPPIAD)”. It dwelt on the major features of proposed scheme, role of States in its implementation and performance based incentives proposed to the companies.