Kerala - Kottayam   

Minister calls for scheme to raise farm income

Staff Reporter

`Attract younger generation to agriculture'

KOTTAYAM: Minister for Agriculture Mullakkara Ratnakaran has stressed the need to launch a scientifically designed comprehensive programme to ensure three-fold increase of agricultural income through diversification and value addition of products.

Inaugurating the harvest of oil palm at the demonstration plantation at Neendukunnan Padasekharam near Kallara, the Minister said: "We have to focus on regulation and preservation of land, correct earlier mistakes but at the same time ensure that our needs are met." The need of the hour was to build a Kerala brand in agricultural products that could be sold in the global market, he said adding that qualitatively, our products can compete with those from anywhere in the world.

He said the major challenge was to attract the younger generation to agriculture.

Declining profits and facilities coupled with the perceived low social status given to farmers should be addressed to attract the younger generation, he said. However, entry of women into the sector in a big way would make a qualitative change to agriculture, he said.

Women have a great role to play in enhancing vegetable production in the State, he said.

V.B. Binu, chairman, Oil Palm India Ltd. (OPIL), inaugurated a loan mela on the occasion. The OPIL is extending a subsidy of Rs. 73,000 a hectare in addition to Rs. 19,000 a hectare as soft loan for construction of bunds. Mons Joseph, MLA, presided.

Oil palm cultivation at Kallara was a major initiative in utilising the once paddy-rich padasekharams of Kuttanad. Work on the farm began in 2002 and the farmers had to face a lot of problems in the initial stages.

However, the work by the Karshaka Samithy leaders and the role played by the OPIL appears to have achieved a major success on Friday when the first bunch of oil palm seeds were harvested by the Minister.

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