The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) regional committee meet commenced in Ranchi on Friday to discuss the problems of agriculture in Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and the measures required to improve farming in the region. Heads of agricultural universities, research institutions and senior Government officials of the eastern region are participating in the two-day deliberation.
Inaugurating the function, the Governor Droupadi Murmu said emphasised on the need for policy intervention to raise the income of farmers in States. She added that number of farmers living below the poverty line in Jharkhand was very high.
“The NSSO data on Consumption Expenditure Survey for year 2011-12 reveals that more than one fifth of rural households with self-employment in agriculture as their principal occupation were having income less than the poverty line. The highest incidence was observed in Jharkhand where 45.3% of farm households were under poverty. Farmers’ income also remained low in relation to income of those working in the non-farm sector,” she said.
The Governor added the disparity was quite large and required a policy response to raise farmers’ income at a faster rate. She said the goal set by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to double the farmer’s income by 2022 is important for promoting farmers’ welfare, reducing agrarian distress and bringing parity between income of famers and those working in non –agricultural professions.
She said at present the cropping intensity and productivity of farmers were low despite good rainfall and opined that production of quality seeds should be taken up. She said farmers are able to use only 20 percent of the rains.
The Governor also stressed on declaring lac as agriculture product, strengthening tassar industry and mainstreaming the good tribal agricultural practices.
Director General of ICAR Trilochan Mahpatra said the meeting was a unique effort to reach out to the state government and ask for their suggestion and the problem they face in agriculture so that the experts could work on them
He added that PM clarion call to double the famer’s income by 2022 was a big challenge adding that the meeting would also discuss the plan of action in this regard. He said agriculture must become profitable if we want to prevent people from shifting to other vocations.
Speaking to media person later on Mahapatra pointed out that water management was very poor in Jharkhand adding that one could increase the irrigated area considerably by building check dams to store water. The water pools could also be used for fish farming. He said Jharkhand had huge potential in floriculture.
Chhabilendra Roul of ICAR said that several institutional factors were responsible for backwardness of agriculture adding that farmers were not taking advantage of the research works of the universities and other organisations.
He said that farming is no longer doing subsistence farming adding that now people are growing crops for markets. Deputy Director General of ICAR AK Singh said that in Jharkhand low availability of quality seeds for farmers was a challenge. He added the agriculture here was also affected due to poor fertilizer and water management in general. People are still rearing indigenous cattle, which has low productivity, he added.
Vice chancellor of the Birsa Agriculture University Dr Parvinder Kaushal opined that Jharkhand has huge agriculture potential however a major challenge here was to enhance the potential of water harvesting. He said major problem is to cultivate crops in the upland where the soil moisture content is low.