Farm stir: UP to launch massive farmers' outreach programme from Jan 6

Of nearly 23 million farming households in UP, 90% are small and marginal

In the backdrop of the ongoing farm stir on Delhi's borders, the Uttar Pradesh government will launch a massive farmers’ outreach programme titled ‘Kisan Kalyan Mission’ from January 6.

The three-week agenda, part of the broader theme of doubling the rural income, will cover all the 400-plus assembly constituencies spanning 75 districts of the state.

There are an estimated 23 million farmers’ households in UP, of which more than 21 million or 90 per cent are small and marginal farmers with fragmented land holdings and subsisting on low farm income.

The average size of land holdings in UP is only 0.73 hectares compared to 3.62 hectares in Punjab. The preponderance of marginal and small farmers results in smaller marketable surplus of agro commodities in UP and therefore such farmers find it more convenient to sell outside ‘mandis’ under the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act.

UP chief minister Adityanath today directed officials to prepare the blueprint of organising block level farmers’ meets, seminars, exhibitions and fairs, and integrating the farming community with the central and state government agricultural and allied sector schemes.

The state will collaborate with progressive farmers, scientists and farming experts to propagate modern and scientific farming methods for cutting down on farm input costs for higher yield and profitability.

At various forums, Adityanath has been stressing that the new central farm laws were aimed at doubling the farm income and providing an additional marketing avenue to farmers to sell their agro produce apart from the government notified ‘mandis’. He claimed vested interests were trying to mislead the farmers on the issue of the new farm laws.

The CM has also directed for speedy procurement of paddy and prompt payment to farmers in the ongoing kharif marketing season. The state is targetting procurement of 5.5 million tonnes (MT) of paddy, while 4.7 MT of paddy has already been purchased by government agencies with nearly two months still left in the kharif procurement cycle.

Meanwhile, he asked officials to expedite the preparation of the state data centre policy while stressing that a conducive investment climate had been facilitated in UP.