Union Minister for Agriculture, Radha Mohan Singh, during his visit to Gujarat indicated to focus on bringing Green Revolution for North-Eastern States in the country. According to Singh, the North-East Indian States didn’t get advantage of the Green Revolution unlike other parts of the nation.
Singh said that fruits of the Green Revolutions didn’t reach the seven sister States in North-East India and his Ministry would like to focus on increasing agriculture income of the farmers there. He also pointed out the possibility of a Blue Revolution by systematically developing fishing industry in the country.
The Agriculture Minister came to Anand town as chief guest of National Dairy Development Board’s (NDDB) golden jubilee celebration. In his key-note address, he said that because of NDDB’s Operation Flood India has emerged as largest milk producing country in the world.
“From merely 20 million ton in 1951, India’s milk production has almost touched 137 million tons. Per capita consumption has also gone up from 120 gram to 300 gram, which indicates better nutrition level,” said the Minister.
According to him, milk contributes nearly 67 per cent of the value of production of livestock sector as the cost of milk production in India during 2012-13 was Rs. 350 crore at current prices. This price is more than the total output value of wheat and rice put together, he said.
He also talked about the rising prices of milk during interaction with media person saying that the Government is not playing any role in deciding the price of milk. The price of the milk is decided by the co-operative dairies, he said adding that if milk prices gone up, farming community would become the biggest beneficiary.
Gujarat’s Agriculture Minister said that because of the Operation Flood, dairy sector became remunerative for millions of people in India connected with animal husbandry. NDDB chairman T Nanda Kumar said that milk cooperatives have played a vital role in the progress of the Indian Dairy Industry.
“The cooperatives have provided gainful employment to farmers and brought them closer to the market. There are 189 district cooperative milk unions in India, covering about 1.6 lakh villages, reaching out to 15.1 Million milk producers of which 4.4 million are women members,” he said.