Criticising the Central Government’s negligence on farmers’ problems, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that though agriculture and animal husbandry is backbone of India’s economy, everyday nearly 2,500 farmers renounce farming activities and prefer to join other occupations.
The rulers are completely unaware of the seriousness that more than 2.17 lakh farmers committed suicide in India in the past two decades, said Modi during inaugural session of first-of-its-kind “Vibrant Gujarat Global Agriculture Summit- 2013” at the State capital, Gandhinagar.
“Such events are expected to be organised by the Delhi Government for the benefit of large number of farmers across the country. If they are not doing, the Gujarat Government has taken an initiative, not only for the farmers of the State but all other States in India,” the BJP’s Campaign Committee chief said, adding that majority of the farmers in this country do not know about an existence of department called ‘agriculture’ in the Government.
However, Gujarat experience is different, the State Government comes out of secretariat building and goes to fields to understand the problem of farmers and connects the farmer with everyone connected with agriculture -- universities, agriculture scientists, markets etc, he said, adding that this approach created miracle in dry Gujarat which was earlier nowhere in agriculture map of the country.
A decade back only 12,000 hectares of land in Gujarat was covered under micro irrigation. The State Government adopted a slogan “Per Drop More Crop” to promote drip irrigation and within few years 9 lakh hectares of land has been covered under micro irrigation and as result of it farmers of Gujarat are reaping rich dividends. Modi said that now he wants farmers in other parts of the country should take such benefits by adopting new technologies.
Targeting UPA Government, BJP’s probable prime ministerial candidate said that of the total farmers in the country only 30 per cent are getting loans from banks, others are depending upon private lenders. “The Central Government should develop agriculture finance and banking system farmer friendly. Why should our farmers left at the mercy of private lendersIJ There is a need to simplify banking system for the farmers,” he said.
In April 2010 the Prime Minister had formed a working group on Consumer Affairs & Agriculture Development head by the Gujarat Chief Minister. “I submitted a report consisting 20 vital recommendations on the subject. But nothing has been done yet,” said Modi. Talking about wastage of food grains he said that instead of giving hefty subsidies to slaughter houses, the Centre should divert that fund to build warehouses.
Speaking on lower productivity in India, Modi said that compared to countries like Netherlands, Peru, Turkey, Indonesia and others, productivity per hectare in crops like wheat, sugarcane, banana and onion are too low. Even in the case of milk production, India’s productivity is very low against the number of cattle.
He showed concern over stagnancy in Research & Development activities on pulses. “Our scientists should be encouraged to work on enhancement of protein nutrient in pulses besides production,” he added.
Modi said that few years back when he visited Israel to attend an agriculture related fair, he was surprised to see that farmers from almost every parts of the country came to learn about new techniques and development in agriculture. On that day he decided to organise an event to sharpen knowledge of Indian farmers on global scale.