Shobha Karandlaje, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, urged the entrepreneurs to double their exports by sending our value-added products to customers not only to local market but worldwide markets
She was inaugurating the World Coconut Day 2023 organised at ICAR-CPCRI Kasaragod on Saturday. The Minister called upon to utilise the Government schemes such as PM Fasal Bhima Yojana, Agricultural Innovation Fund, and other schemes to improve production, value addition and export oriented trade. District-wise custom hiring centres have started all over the country, she said.
Minister cautioned the farmers against fake seeds everywhere. She welcomed the ICAR-CPCRI initiative on quality assured QR coded seedlings, which can help tracing the seedling details.
She highlighted the need of shifting Copra centered processing to other products like neera, and chips to delink coconut price from that of copra. The Farmer Production Organisations (FPOs) can do many things in farm mechanization including application of drones with an aim to reduce cost of production. FPOs can avail incentives to set up custom hire center so as to cater the need of small and marginal farmers.
She also mentioned that the budget allocation for agriculture increased more than 4 times compared to 2014. Similarly the Minimum Support Price of copra doubled. Despite this, it is proven now that supply of more copra into the market will lead to price crash.
The minister visited various research laboratory of the institute including tissue culture & the agro processing unit laboratory.she has also witnessed drone based spraying on coconut plantation,ground pollination device demonstration,product of organic farming technology, integrated pest& disease management practices adopted by institute.
N A Nellikunnu appreciated the works of CPCRI and requested the Minister to hike allocation to Kerala. He appreciated the Minister for showing keen interest in the Institute. A Nellikkunnu, MLA, who presided over the function highlighted the present crisis faced by the coconut farmers. He wanted to bring production to Rs 10 by adopting technologies. He wanted the departments to encourage the youth to take up farming.
Dr. VB Patel, Assistant Director General (F&PC), ICAR, New Delhi felicitating the function, told stakeholders together that they can take coconut to higher levels in the long term. A database on carbon sequestration can be converted to a carbon trading model to estimate environmental impact. He congratulated the CPCRI for the generation of the highest number of technologies.
Publications were released during the programme, which include, 1) Cultivation practices of coconut - North east India, 2) Advisory on integrated management of leaf spot disease in arecanut in English and Malayalam, 3)Ready Reckoner on Cocoa, Coconut and Arecanut (bilingual in English & Kannada), 4) Coconut Products by Coconut Development Board in English & Hindi and 5) Schemes for prosperity by Coconut Development Board.
An app on QR code development for seedlings was also executed by the Hon’ble minister. During the programme, 15 farmer entrepreneurs all over India were also awarded
