Govt should bring in policy for crop diversification: Assocham

The government should come out with a farm policy aimed at crop diversification and use of environment-friendly materials in place of chemicals and pesticides, industry body Assocham said today.     

"The suggested policy should prescribe a time period of three years to yield desired results, and should gradually move agriculture on to achieve radical changes in it and especially so, in India's rural economy," the chamber said.     

Agricultural management should become the focal point for moving farming from tradition to a steadily income-generating activity, and the new policy should also promote corporate farming, it said.     

"...Enough incentives be provided to farmers to integrate them with animal husbandry and poultry and introduce short term commercial crops... For raising rural farm incomes," Assocham President Swati Piramal said.     

The chamber further said the investment in agriculture had gone down to 2.1 per cent from 2.4 per cent of the GDP between year 2000 and 2007.     

The share of private sector in gross investment in agriculture continues to be above 70 per cent while that of the public sector has been rising sharply, it said.