During the last four and a half years, several steps have been taken by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare in the interest of farmers. “Farmers’ Welfare” is the primary goal of this Government’s agricultural policy. For its implementation, increasing employment in agricultural sector and enhancing the income of farmers are the important factors. To achieve this, the Government is trying to increase productivity, reduce cost, and prioritize crops with high value, reduce risks and make agriculture sustainable.

In order to achieve this, the budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector has been raised by 74% and the SDRF allocation has been almost doubled. Corpus funds have been created like Rs 5000 crore micro irrigation fund, Rs 10,081 crore for Dairy Processing and Infrastructure Development Fund, Rs 7550 Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF), Rs 2,450 crore for development of animal husbandry infrastructure and Rs 2,000 crore for the development of Rural Agricultural Market Infrastructure.

Many policy reforms have been carried out with the above financial provisions. For the first time, Soil Health Card is being provided to farmers on the basis of a national standard, e-NAM has been started to help farmers receive fair value of their produce and Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna to cover the maximum risk of farmers’ crops based on the Scale of Finance by removing capping on minimum premium. Soil Health Card and Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana for organic farming, Har Medh Par Ped for sustainable agriculture, ‘Per Drop More Crop’ with special emphasis on micro irrigation and restructured National Bamboo Mission.

In the last 4 years, agricultural credit flow has increased by 57% to Rs 11 lakh crore and interest subsidy has also been increased by one and half times to Rs 15,000 crore. To increase the income of the farmers, 546 FPO has been constituted by the SFAC besides State Governments and FPOs of NABARD during the tenure of Modi Government. For landless farmers, the Joint Liability Group has been increased from 6.72 lakh to 27.49 lakh.

In its efforts to double the income of the farmers by 2022, MSPs of 24 crops have been raised by 1.5 times of the production cost, thereby fulfilling the Government’s promise. There has been an unprecedented increase of upto 15 times in purchase by the Government through PSS, PSF and MIS schemes.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare is implementing the 7-point strategy developed under the leadership of the Prime Minister and also recommended by Swaminathan, like Per Drop More Crop, provision of nutrients according to the soil quality of each farm, large investments in warehouses and cold chains to prevent post-harvest losses, promotion of value addition through food processing, e-NAM, introduction of crop insurance scheme at lower costs to mitigate the risk, and promotion of allied activities such as dairy-animal husbandry, poultry, beekeeping, Medh Per Ped, horticulture, and fisheries.

(The writer is Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India. Views expressed are personal.)