Increasing employment in the agriculture sector and enhancing the incomes of farmers are the important factors in the implementation of the agricultural policy of the incumbent government, whose primary goal is farmers’ welfare.
To achieve this, the ministry of agriculture and farmers’ welfare, Government of India, has taken a number of steps over the last four-and-a-half years. It is trying to increase productivity, reduce costs, prioritise crops with high value, reduce risks and make agriculture sustainable.
In order to achieve this, the Budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector has been raised by 74 percent, and the SDRF (State Disaster Response Force) allocation has been almost doubled.
Corpus funds, like Rs 5,000 crore for micro-irrigation fund; Rs 10,081 crore for a Dairy Processing and Infrastructure Development Fund, Rs 7,550 crore for a Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF), Rs 2,450 crore for the development of animal husbandry infrastructure, and Rs 2,000 crore for the development of rural agricultural market infrastructure, have been created.
Many policy reforms have been carried out with the above financial provisions. For the first time, Soil Health Cards are being provided to farmers on the basis of a national standard; the electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) has been started to help farmers receive fair value of their produce, and the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna has been implemented to cover the maximum risk of farmers’ crops based on the Scale of Finance by removing capping on minimum premium.
The schemes in place include Soil Health Card and Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana for organic farming; Har Medh Par Ped for sustainable agriculture, Per Drop More Crop with special emphasis on micro-irrigation and the restructured National Bamboo Mission.
In the last four years, agricultural credit flow has increased by 57 percent to Rs 11 lakh crore, and interest subsidy has also been increased by one-and-a-half times to Rs 15,000 crore.
To increase the income of the farmers, 546 FPOs (farmer producer organisations) has been constituted by the SFAC (Small Farmers’ Agri-business Consortium), besides state governments and FPOs of NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development) during the tenure of the Modi government. For landless farmers, the Joint Liability Group has been increased from Rs 6.72 lakh to Rs 27.49 lakh.
In its efforts to double the incomes of the farmers by 2022, the MSPs (minimum support prices) of 24 crops have been raised by one-and-a-half times their production costs, thereby fulfilling the government’s promise. There has been an unprecedented increase of upto 15 times in purchase by the government through schemes such as PSS (Price Support Scheme), PSF (Price Stabilisation Fund) and MIS (Market Intervention Scheme).
In order to make Indian agriculture competitive, a new export policy been formulated, and with the various efforts of the Modi government, there has been 95 percent increase in export value of marine products, 84 per cent rice, 77 percent fresh fruits, 43 percent fresh vegetables and 38 percent spices.
Farmers’ interests have also been protected by imposing import duty on oilseeds and pulses through quantitative restrictions.
Several amendments have been made in the APMC (Agriculture Produce Market Committee) Act for the implementation of electronic trading. In addition, the new APLM Act (Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing [Promotion and Facilitation] Act), the Land Leasing Act and the Contract Farming and Services Act have been issued to states for implementation.
Through advanced research in agriculture, 795 new crops with bio-fortification and resilience to climate change have been released to the farmers, thereby enabling increase in productivity and enhancing the incomes of farmers.
New colleges have been established for agriculture and veterinary education. The number of seats has been raised, stipends for the students have also been increased. Besides, schemes like Farmer First, Mera Gaon Mera Gaurav and Arya have been started for better coordination and interaction between agricultural scientists and farmers.
Besides crops, special attention has been paid to horticulture crops and agricultural related activities. For the promotion of indigenous breeds in the Indian climate, special emphasis is being given to the Rashtriya Gokul Mission, sex-sorted semen, and the development of dairy infrastructure.
Through the Blue Revolution, importance is being given to various dimensions of inland and maritime fisheries and also on the development of fisheries infrastructure. Simultaneously, beekeeping has been developed as additional source of income of farmers through integrated beekeeping development centres.
The success of the government’s plan and policies was reflected in the fact that in the year 2017-18, there was record a foodgrain production of 284.83 million tonne, a record horticulture production of 306.82 million tonne, and pulses production increased by 40 percent to 25.23 million tonne.
The ministry of agriculture and farmers’ welfare is implementing the seven-point strategy developed under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and also recommended by M S Swaminathan, like Per Drop More Crop, provision of nutrients according to the soil quality of each farm, large investments in warehouses and cold chains to prevent post-harvest losses, promotion of value addition through food processing, e-NAM, introduction of crop insurance scheme at lower costs to mitigate the risk, and promotion of allied activities such as dairy, animal husbandry, poultry, beekeeping, Medh Per Ped, horticulture, and fisheries.
For agricultural processing, tomato, onion and potato clusters will be set up under the TOP scheme. New agri start-ups and agri entrepreneurs are being encouraged. The necessary steps are being taken for creation of infrastructure of 22,000 rural haats. Setting up of cold chains and warehouses will be expedited. The focus on price and demand forecasting will enable farmers to choose which crop to sow in order to maximise the benefit.
