More emphasis will be laid on production of pulses and oil seeds
Addressing the National Conference for Rabi Campaign 2020 held today under his Chairmanship to review the progress of Kharif 2020-21 and plan for the Rabi season, Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar said that Government is taking revolutionary steps to strengthen agriculture infrastructure and economic condition of the farmers.
Recently Agricultural Infrastructure Fund (AIF) scheme worth Rs 1 lakh crore for 4 years has been launched for creating facilities for cold storage, warehouse, packaging, ripening & waxing plants by agri-entrepreneurs, farmers’ association and local government agencies. Tentative allocation to the states have made on the basis of total value of output of the state from agriculture and allied sectors.
A 3% interest subvention will be given on bank interest, making loan with effective interest rate in the range of 5.0 to 5.5%. Formation of 10,000 Farmers Producer Organisations (FPOs) is another such step to organize farmers in aggregation and marketing for higher returns. These will be registered under company or cooperative act and 15% will be constituted in Aspirational and Notified Tribal Areas.
The conference set a target of 301 million tonnes of food grains production for 2020-21 which includes 119.60, 108.00, 5.00, 9.57, 29.00 and 47.80 million tonnes of rice, wheat, Jowar, bajra, maize and coarse cereals, respectively. More emphasis will be laid on production of pulses and oilseeds and targets have been set at 25.60 million tonnes for pulses and 37.00 million tonnes for oilseeds. To reduce import of edible oils, great emphasis is being laid on production of oilseeds and oil palm plantation indigenously. This Rabi Focus is on Mustard under oilseeds and the target for production of mustard alone has been raised from 92 to 125 lakh tonnes.
