Centre Plans Millennium Study On Farmers

The Union government will soon conduct a millennium study on the state of the Indian farmers. The findings of the study will provide the basis for reorienting agricultural programmes and new initiatives to uplift farmers in the 21st century, said C R Hazra, agriculture commissioner, ministry of agriculture, government of India.

Agriculture, though the largest private sector enterprise in the country employing 10 crore farmers, contributes only 24 per cent of gross domestic product.

Hazra was addressing participants of AgriCorp India 2000 on "Corporatisation of Agriculture in India" here yesterday. Elaborating on the study Hazra said, "It aims to gauge the impact of transformation induced by public policy, investments and technological change on the farmers' access to resources and incomes and the well-being of farm households at the end of five decades of planned economic development."

 

Hazra also said a fresh draft of the National Agricultural Policy was being finalised and would be tabled in the budget session of the parliament.

The two-day seminar is being organised by the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry to understand how best the agro industry can gear up to meet challenges posed by increasing international competition.

Other speakers at the function included Nick Hutchinson, director and co-head, south Asia, of agrochem and seeds major Monsanto. Hutchinson took the help of a case study of the company's experience with government and farmers in Indonesia to explain how the industry can act as a facilitator between government, research institutes and the farmer.

Called the `Third Harvest,' Hutchinson's case study elaborated how Monsanto had worked together with government, agri-universities, extension services to popularise the concept of conservation tillage of rice. This entails using herbicides to eliminate weeds in place of traditional tillage of corps either using a tractor or bullocks. Hutchinson said as a result of conservation tillage, the average time that the farmer took to prepare the land for crop decreased from 45 days to 15 days. In between two rice crops it was possible for the farmer to actually sow a soybean or corn crop and get a third harvest, he said.

"We acted as facilitator to get government, institutions and non governmental organisations together, put the appropriate technology in place, made it affordable and saw to it that farmers got credit facilities," he said.

Monsanto has also commenced working with farmers in Andhra Pradesh to popularise the concept of conservative tillage on rice.