Farmers had lost interest in agri when we came to power: Radha Mohan Singh

BUSINESS STANDARD Farmers had lost interest in agri when we came to power: Radha Mohan Singh

Economic & Policy : Before the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, took office in 2014 under Narendra Modi’s leadership, farmers had been losing interest in agriculture due to an increase in cultivation cost relative to their income, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh on Thursday. He was delivering the keynote address at the second edition of the Business

Standard Agriculture Round Table in New Delhi’s PUSA Campus.

A big reason for farmers’ loss of interest in agriculture, said Singh, was previous governments’ failure to address critical issues related to farming, such as commercialisation of agriculture, production of organic products, protection of crops from pests, maintaining soil fertility, land reforms and storage and market linkages.

Since 2014, four critical areas of agriculture —reducing cost of production, ensuring remunerative price for farmers’ produce, stopping wastage, and ensuring alternative source of income — were being addressed in a mission mode, the minister said. “We decided to implement the schemes in such a way that farmers’ income could be doubled by 2022.”...Read More