INDIA:Eastern Region has Potential to become Granary of the Country: Shri Pawar

17:56 IST


The Minister of Agriculture, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Shri Sharad Pawar has said that the eastern region has the potential to become the granary of the country. Addressing a Workshop in Kolkata on Bringing Green Revolution to the Eastern Region, the Minister said that the new initiative approved in the Union budget this year presents golden opportunity for the farmers in the region to improve the productivity of their crops and contribute significantly to ensuring food security of the country.

Referring to good work already happening under different central and the state sector schemes in the region, Shri Pawar underlined the need to increase the tempo and use this opportunity presented under the new initiative to achieve the desired results. To ensure time bound delivery of agriculture services to the farmers, the Minister suggested that each State should set up an empowered group of ministers under the Chief Minister to cover all aspects of the agriculture sector. He also suggested for setting up a task force on promotion of hybrid rice at the national level for more aggressive promotion of hybrid rice in the region.

Here is the text of the Minister’s speech:

Hon’ble Union Finance Minister, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Hon’ble Chief Ministers, Agriculture Ministers of the States, Vice Chancellors of the State Agriculture Universities, Agriculture Scientists, Experts, Senior officers of the Central and the State Governments, Ladies and Gentlemen

2. I am very pleased and satisfied with the successful conclusion of this workshop. I would, first of all, like to thank you all for your presentations, valuable observations and suggestions and above all active participation in discussions on various issues.

3. We had set for ourselves three objectives for the workshop.

a) To understand the constraints that are impeding agriculture production in the Eastern Region

b) To find, in order of priority, feasible options to address these constraints

c) To finalize implementation plans for the current year.

4. I am happy to note that through discussions in the technical and the plenary sessions of the workshop we have not only prioritized the set of recommendations for addressing the identified key constraints but have also finalized the action plans for implementation from the ongoing kharif crop season. I congratulate everybody for this positive outcome.

5. Hon’ble Finance Minister in his inaugural address raised a number of important issues particularly in the context of ensuring food security of the country. We need to make efforts at all levels of the Government to translate his suggestions into action through appropriate policies and implementation strategies. I would also like to thank the Finance Minister for supporting the efforts of the Ministry of Agriculture not only through additional budgetary allocations but also by extending various tax concessions for building marketing infrastructure and processing facilities. We look forward to his continued support and assure him that the money invested in the Region would yield expected returns.

6. Hon’ble Finance Minister rightly observed that implementation is the key for ensuring successful outcome. Based on the discussions and the points that have emerged I would like to suggest following approaches on implementation of the initiative:

i. To ensure time bound delivery of agriculture services to the farmers, each State should set up an empowered group of ministers under Hon’ble Chief Minister to cover all aspects of the Agriculture sector across Agriculture, Irrigation, Power, Rural Development, Planning and Finance Departments. Such an integrating mechanism would help to deliver coordinated and timely response to the Farmers’ needs both in policies and the implementation of various schemes.

ii. A task force on promotion of Hybrid Rice should be created at the National Level for more aggressive promotion of hybrid rice in the Region. This task force would be headed by an Additional Secretary in my Department and would have Deputy Director General Crop Sciences and CMD FCI as its members. Task force would hold periodic meetings with the State Governments in the Region to prepare a work plan for significantly increasing the area under Hybrid Rice. It should devise strategies to create clusters of villages adopting hybrid rice so that procurement centers are opened in those clusters for giving marketing support to the farmers. Seed Production of Hybrid Rice will have to be planned and implemented with active association of the State Agriculture Universities and the public and private sector seed producing companies to meet the requirement of the farmers for seeds. Suitable testing protocols should be standardized and enforced to assure farmers of the quality of the seed. Of course, research would need to be intensified for evolving better varieties of hybrid rice suitable to different agro ecological conditions. I believe we can learn from the Chinese experience and promote hybrid rice in a mission mode in the Region. I would like to thank Prof. Ashok Gulati from IFPRI for a candid and lucid presentation bringing out critical success factors in Chinese approach that catalysed quick adoption of hybrid rice by the farmers. We should replicate this learning in right earnest. An exclusive program under the current initiative could be planned and funds ear marked to ensure that the farmers get good technologies to improve productivity levels.

iii. We need to take campaigns to promote aerobic rice, system of rice intensification, pest surveillance and monitoring, farm mechanization, increasing seed replacement rates with stress tolerant varieties like suvarna sub 1 and sahbhagi dhan, promotion of micro nutrients and soil ameliorants. State Agriculture Universities should be actively associated in these campaigns in planning and in implementation. Again, we need to mount these campaigns in clusters of villages to create impact.

iv. Water management and development of Power infrastructure are integral to development of agriculture in the Region. In Government of India we have created Task Force Committees through Water Resources and the Power Ministries where the State Irrigation and power Secretaries are members. I would urge upon you to create a similar structure at the State level to ensure that these two critical inputs are developed as per the requirement of the Region. While at some places problems of draining the flood water would need to be sorted out, at other places, it could be the ground water that needs to be developed or water harvesting structures that need to be created. Similarly, Government tube wells and canal irrigation would need to be renovated for reaching water to the tail end user in each command area. Funds are available under different schemes. We need to take up time bound completion of the works so as to maximize the developed areas through promotion of crop promotion programs.

v. There should be a good monitoring and evaluation system to improve the quality of implementation. On the lines of merit based awards included under the National Food Security Mission, I would like you to consider instituting awards for the panchayats that are able to show significant increase in input use. For example, pradhan of any panchayat who has promoted hybrid rice to the extent of 25 percent of the crop area could be felicitated. Such an award scheme could be developed for different programs and announced to energize the campaign mode of implementation.

7. I would like to conclude by saying that Eastern Region has the potential to become the granary of the country. A lot of good work is already happening under different central and the state sector schemes. We need to increase the tempo and use this opportunity presented under the new initiative approved in the Union budget this year to achieve the desired results. Both my ministerial colleagues referred in their addresses to excellent work done by Punjab and Haryana in ensuring food security of the country. But in their zest to produce more and more food grains, there is over exploitation of the natural resources by the farmers of these States which is making their agriculture unsustainable. It is time that other States now pitch in with renewed efforts to share the responsibility of producing enough to feed our growing population. New initiative on ‘Bringing Green Revolution to the Eastern Region’ presents golden opportunity for the farmers in the region to improve the productivity of their crops and contribute significantly to ensuring food security of the country. I am confident that with the strong political will, talented scientific pool, able administration and above all hard working farmers the initiative will become a good success.

8. My best wishes to the States for the successful outcome.

SB/kolkataworkshop(10.7.2010)