NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that the government is working to ensure that adequate agriculture credit is available to farmers who don’t own land but grow crops on other fields. He also added that the centre is working with states to ensure that farmers get minimum support price (MSP) for crops at least one and a half times the cost.
Addressing the Krishi Unnati Mela 2018 in Delhi, the Prime Minister said, “We are working for farmers who rent agriculture land to do farming. To ensure that such famer get easy agriculture credit we are in talks with state governments.”
He added that it has often been seen that small farmers face difficulty in taking loans from co-operative societies. “To address this issue all primary cooperative societies are being computerised across the country,” he said.
Modi said that while fixing MSP of various crops inputs from labour, rent for machinery, cost of seeds and fertilizers, revenue being given to state government, interest on working capital and rent of leased land will be included.
He said the aim remains to double farmers’ incomes, and make the farmers’ lives easier. More than 11 crore soil health cards have been distributed so far and 100 percent neem coating of urea has also resulted in lowering expenditure on fertilizer, apart from raising productivity, he said while appealing to farmers to reduce the consumption of urea by at least half by 2022.
“Government is working day and night to ensure that farmers get latest seeds, required electricity, do not face any problem in market access and get right prices for their produce,” Modi said.
On Saturday, he laid the foundation stone for 25 Krishi Vigyan Kendras and also launched an e-marketing portal for organic products. He gave away the Krishi Karman Awards and the Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Krishi Protsahan Puraskar.
Similarly, he spoke of the benefits of solar farming. He said about 2.75 lakh solar pumps have reached farmers in the last three years.
The Prime Minister said crop residue burning has harmful effects, and if the crop residue is instead returned to the soil through machines, it will have beneficial effects.
More than 800 stalls have been set up by the central and state governments and various other organisations in this fair. Theme of the fair is doubling farmer’s income by 2022. The fair is showcasing farmers on how to double farmers income, live demonstrations on micro-irrigation, waste water utilisation, animal husbandry and fisheries.
