Uttarakhand to keep farmland for agro-use only

The official draft of a new agricultural policy for Uttarakhand will aim to bar farmland from conversion to other use and to achieve food security. Farm land is proposed to be covered under various Special Agricultural Zones (SAZs) for the purpose.

Under the SAZ programme, the government proposes to have agro-based units like fisheries, tea gardens, dairy farming and various other agriculture and horticulture activities. “SAZs are just like micro and small enterprises, through which we are trying to protect our agricultural land and bring food security,” said Trivendra Singh Rawat, the Minister for Agriculture.

“The government has already started identifying areas.” Subsidies under the new hill development policy would be extended to SAZs.

The draft policy clearly states that there should be no industrialisation on agricultural land in Uttarakhand, he said. This is acceptance of a committee proposal last year, drafted by agricultural scientists (mainly from Pantnagar University). The scientists had proposed there be no Special Economic Zones and no industrialisation on agro-land, arguing that much of such land had fallen into the hands of builders and businessmen in recent years. Government sources say around 24,000 ha of rural land had been taken away for both urbanisation and industrial programmes in the past decade.

Rawat says industrialisation should use only non-agricultural or non-cultivated agricultural land; the estimate is that about 310,000 ha of the former and 383,000 ha of the latter are available.

“We want to protect our agriculture, for which we want to bring SAZs in Uttarakhand,” said Rawat. The government is also interested in providing interest-free loans to farmers, besides electricity, water supply and seeds at cheap rates.