The Hindu : National : 4 per cent farm growth not easy: Sharad Pawar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 22, 2004

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National

4 per cent farm growth not easy: Sharad Pawar

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI, DEC. 21. At a time when the Centre was focussing on the timely availability of farm inputs to increase production for a four per cent growth rate in agriculture, several Agriculture Ministers, participating in a National Conference here today, bemoaned the high interest on credit and shortage of fertilizers and quality seeds as impediments to achieving targets.

The States have set a target of 125 million tonnes for the rabi crop in 2004-05 to make good the over 10 per cent shortfall in the kharif crop due to drought. "This may not be realistic," the Union Agriculture and Food Minister, Sharad Pawar, told The Hindu . The first estimate of the kharif output is around 100 million tonnes, against a target of 113.80 million tonnes, he said.

Mr. Pawar was candid in saying that "if India were to achieve a growth rate of 8 per cent GDP, the agriculture sector would have to grow by at least by 4 per cent, which in the given circumstances is not an easy task."

The Crops Division of the Ministry of Agriculture has already projected a deficit of about 17.9 per cent in wheat and 5.59 per cent in pulses acreage till December 15 this year, although the sowing season is still on. The Government is hopeful of achieving targets by the end of January next year.

The Agriculture Ministers of 24 States, Vice-Chancellors of Agriculture Universities, Union Minister of State, Kantilal Bhuria, and senior representatives from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), GM Crops, crop insurance companies and the Indian Council of Scientific Research attended the conference.

Underscoring the need for increasing the flow of credit to the farm sector, Mr. Pawar urged the Reserve Bank of India and NABARD to come out with "affordable interest rate structure" for the sector. He lauded NABARD for making efforts to enhance agriculture credit, which had risen from Rs. 37,000 crores last year to Rs. 63,000 crores this year. The Agriculture Ministry had taken up the issue with the Finance Ministry, he said.

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