Pawar Calls for fillip to farm Mechanisation with Private Sector Participation

INVC,,

Chandigarh,,

Union Agriculture Minister, Shri Sharad Pawar, today emphasized the need for high level of farm mechanization for saving labour and time, and increasing farmers’ income. He said that the government was giving a high priority to farm mechanization in view of its many benefits to farmers. Shri Pawar was speaking at the inauguration of Agro-Tech 2010, the biennial agro technology and business fair, at Chandigarh.

Arguing strongly for evolving ways to adapt farm technologies to Indian conditions, Shri Pawar said: ‘The need for higher agriculture yields and the imperative to achieve desired agricultural growth necessitates acceleration of farm mechanization and broadening its applicability to agriculture sectors on an urgent basis. Farm mechanization not only saves time and labour, cuts down crop production costs, reduces post-harvest losses; but also promote sustainable use of natural resources through machine assisted resource-conservation farming such as zero-tillage, raised-bed planting, precision farming, drip or sprinkler irrigation etc. Keeping this in view, the Ministry of Agriculture has already given a clarion call to all state governments to promote resource-conserving equipment, especially Zero-till seed drill and micro-irrigation equipment. ‘However, it is noteworthy that Indian agriculture primarily consists of a large population of small and marginal farmers, whose smaller landholding and weaker economic status render them ‘economically unviable’ for single ownership of many of the currently available high-value agricultural machinery and equipments. Thus, there is need to ‘relook’ and ‘reengineer’ the existing process of farm mechanization that has not been able to effectively include small and marginal farmers. The future of farm mechanisation in India may lie in the success of design, development and easy availability of low-cost, locally customized, user-friendly agricultural machineries and equipment that would not only suit to the requirements of our diverse natural resources but also match to the economic strength of the large and relatively low productive ‘bottom of the pyramid’ of Indian Agriculture.

‘In this direction, there is a growing need to create the desired synergy for putting our level of Farm Mechanization on a faster growth path. The Agricultural Equipment Manufacturers, State Agricultural Universities, Krishi Vigyan Kendras, Agriclinic & Agribusiness Centers, Cooperatives, Self Help Groups etc. may have to join hands to see our farm power per ha reach to appropriate level.

‘The Ministry of Agriculture has recently designated 21 State Agricultural Universities and ICAR institutions as approved centers for performance testing of low cost agricultural machinery and equipments varieties such as hand tools, manual operated equipments or machines etc. We believe that this measure will broadbase the quality assurance programme and further help in strengthening institution-industry-farmers interface necessary to accelerate the level of farm mechanization in the country.’

CALL FOR PRIVATE SECTOR PARTICIPATION

Shri Pawar called upon the private sector to participate in a big way so that the true potential of Inidan agriculture is realized. ‘The private sector must come forward with ideas and investment to bring the much needed vibrancy into our agriculture and allied sectors,’ he said. ‘While the government continues to revisit its policy interventions at regular interval to ensure that equitable distribution of benefits accrue through farm mechanization, there is an urgent need for greater participation of private enterprises especially in areas of custom hiring, agri-services and developing low-cost customized implements for catalyzing an accelerated growth of agricultural mechanization in our country. This has become increasingly important in view of the rising labour cost. I have been told on innumerable occasion by farmers in Punjab and Haryana how they are finding extremely difficult to source agriculture labour. The same is true of Maharashtra, Karnataka and many other States.’

The Minister also informed that the government had launched a Terminal Market Complex project in public-private-partnership. There has been very good response to these schemes. He said that the Terminal Market Complex projects in Patna (Bihar) and Perundurai (Tamil Nadu) have already been approved. In principle approval has also been provided to the Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra for setting up of TMC at Chennai, Nagpur, Madurai and Thane respectively.