The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Farm production target fixed at 4.5 p.c. of GSDP

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 01, 2006
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Farm production target fixed at 4.5 p.c. of GSDP

Special Correspondent

New policy to be unveiled on November 9

FARM POLICY: Agriculture Minister Bandeppa Kashempur (left) and Home Minister M.P. Prakash addressing a press conference in Bangalore on Tuesday. — Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash

BANGALORE: The draft agricultural policy of the State Government has set the agricultural production target at 4.5 per cent of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) for the next 10 years. Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy will unveil the policy after Cabinet approval on November 9.

The Government had earlier decided to announce the new policy on November 1.

Agriculture Minister Bandeppa Kashempur told presspersons here on Tuesday that the policy would focus on drawing up short-term and long-term strategies to increase farm production and add value to produce. A target of 114.56 lakh tonnes has been set for foodgrain production for the agricultural seasons of 2006-07. But the target is unlikely to be achieved since 120 taluks have been declared drought hit.

Declining share

The State produced 115.26 lakh tonnes of foodgrains in 2005-06, 66.64 lakh tonnes in 2002-03 and 104.95 lakh tonnes in 2004-05. The share of the agricultural sector in the GSDP declined from 26.2 per cent in 2000-01 to 15.6 per cent in 2004-05 (at current prices), official sources told The Hindu .

The draft policy was based on the `panchasutra' advocated by M.S. Swaminathan, noted agricultural scientist and Chairman of the National Commission on Farmers. The five principles are protecting and improving soil health; conserving natural resources with special emphasis on water and micro-irrigation; ensuring timely availability of credit and other inputs to farmers; integrating post-harvest processing with the production process and reducing the lab to land gap in the transfer of technology, Mr. Kashempur said.

The policy envisaged a strategy for market reforms, revamping agricultural extension services to increase the price realised by farmers and increasing the growth rate from present 2 per cent to 4.5 per cent.

A Cabinet subcommittee would be set up to review the implementation of the policy, he said.

Institutional and technological reforms would be other thrust areas. The policy would take into account common constraints to higher growth, gap between farm productivity and input cost, weak links between research and extension, access to credit and stagnancy in agricultural technology and the need to set up cold storages and godowns in rural areas, Mr. Kashempur said.

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