Karnataka - Bangalore   

Meet on farm sector issues today

Special Correspondent

M.S. Swaminathan is among participants

BANGALORE: The Department of Agriculture will hold a daylong meeting with agricultural scientists, bank officials and representatives of farmers at the Karnataka State Cooperative Apex Bank here on Saturday to discuss problems confronting the farm sector.

M.S. Swaminathan, scientist and Chairman of the National Commission on Farmers, will make a presentation on "Serving farmers and saving farmers", a draft national policy. On February 25, he attended a meeting with farmers' representatives organised by the Government.

The National Commission on Farmers has recommended expansion of the scope of minimum support price and agricultural insurance policies to cover crops that are important for small farmers.

It is in favour of establishment of a market risk stabilisation fund by the Union and State governments and financial institutions to protect farmers during periods of wide fluctuations in prices, for instance in the case of perishable commodities such as onion, potato and tomato.

The Commission has stressed the need for an agriculture risk fund to insulate farmers from risks arising out of recurrent drought and other climatic aberrations.

Minister for Agriculture Bandeppa Kashempur; R. Dwarakinath and S. Bisaliah, former vice-chancellors of the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore; R.S. Deshpande, professor, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, and officials of NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development) and Karnataka State Cooperative Apex Bank will attend the meeting.

Strategies for the implementation of the recommendations of the Commission will be discussed.

Issues such as credit, marketing, procurement, crop and region-specific programmes would also be among topics.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

It will be difficult to touch the 20,000-site mark, says BDA chief
BMC, Mysore Medical Colleges may be granted autonomy
People in north and south India belong to the same gene pool: ICHR Chairman
Century launches men's wear
Software engineer robbed
Meet on farm sector issues today
Focus is now on happiness quotient
FKCCI to present awards to exporters, organisations
RTO jurisdiction of some areas changed
People protest transfer of Yeshwanthpur police inspector
Monorail: Government criticised
Man commits suicide
Around the City
In Bangalore Today
Law & Order

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu