Despite bringing Food Security Bill that would require huge amount of foodgrains for distribution of subsidised grains to 67 per cent population of the country, the Government has failed to provide sufficient funds for agriculture research.
Perturbed over Government’s failure to provide adequate fund for the research efforts of scientists, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture said that the allocation of Rs 12,023 crore against Rs 31,000 crore recommended by the Working Group for Department of Agriculture Research and Education for the Eleventh Plan shows complete lack of concern by the Government for the important aspect.
The climate change is impacting agriculture production, which employs 60 per cent of workforce of the country, and this is very worrisome, observed the panel headed by CPI(M) leader Basudeb Acharia.
Apart from vagaries of monsoon, abiotic stress like depletion of water table and nutrient imbalances in soil, imbalanced use of fertilisers and increasing toxicity of selenium and other heavy metals are posing major threat to agriculture production.
“What has, however, disappointed that despite being forewarned of the impending threats and their likely ramifications on agriculture sector and livelihood of millions of people, the Government has remained impervious to the gravity of the situation,” it said.
The panel said that in view of the capital intensive solutions to these vexed problems it had recommended in the past that the National Agriculture Research System ought to be provided sufficient funds to ensure that research and development efforts are not hindered.
“The committee is, however, highly perturbed to note that the Government has singularly failed to adequately fund the research efforts of our research scientists,” it lamented. The committee has also expressed unhappiness over the tardy progress in mapping of soil fertility due to which a large number of small and marginal farmers do not invest in application of micronutrients which has lead to increase in deficiencies of nutrients such as Zinc, Boron, Sulphur and Iron and also degrading environment or leading to pollution.
So far the Government has prepared soil fertility maps of micronutrients for only 20 States and micronutrient maps for 10 States. The committee has asked DARE to complete the mapping of soil fertility of the all the remaining States in time bound manner as this would contribute significantly in the strategies being evolved for tackling abiotic stress like drought, flood and other such situations.