Bihar govt to promote and brand co-op farming: Min

The Bihar government today said it is working on a model to promote cooperative farming in the state, besides giving a brand name to it for better growth and development of farmers.
"In the interest of the state's farmers and their better growth and development, the state government is working on a model to promote co-operative farming in the state. The government will provide cooperative farming a brand name in order to sell their produce in the international market," state Cooperative minister Alok Kumar Mehta said.
Mehta was replying to a debate on cooperative department's budgetary demand of Rs 670.21 crore for FY'16/17.

The minister said if 50 or 100 odd cooperatives were formed for the purpose, then big companies from China and the Middle East would come to the doorsteps of farmers to buy their produce.
Later talking to reporters, Mehta said suppose cooperative farming of spices was done on 1,000 acres of land with the help of high technology and modern equipment, then it would naturally attract the attention of big companies overseas and they would buy the produce from farmers of Bihar.
Per capita land holding has reduced to such an extent that it was not possible to carry out scientific farming for small and marginal farmers on their small size plots and hence, cooperative department was working on a model to carry out cooperative farming, he said.

Stating that the government and its agencies have so far procured 11.23 lakh MT of paddy in the state, he said information with regard to paddy procurement can be obtained through a mobile app, which would be made public.

The government plans to construct multi-storeyed 'Sahkar
Bhawan' in every district, which would help farmers in putting their produce for exhibition and sale, Mehta said.
It would also house cooperative bank, office of cooperative department, he said.
A campaign would be launched to make two members -- one male and a female -- of PACS from each family, the minister said, making it clear it would not be mandatory, but would be motivated to become member in order to bring transparency in PACS.

In the past 10 years, members of PACS have gone upto 1.06 crore from 36.68 lakh, while the number of female members has reached 6.54 lakh from two lakh, he said.
The opposition NDA led by Leader of Opposition Prem Kumar boycotted the reply alleging the government has failed to answer any of the questions raised by its members.
Kumar said the government has been proved a failure in paddy procurement, did not announce bonus for paddy procurement and farmers have been resorting to distress selling.
The cut motion moved by BJP's Shachindra Kumar Singh was rejected by the House.

Three CPI(ML) members also boycotted the proceedings.