Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal on Sunday asserted that the income of the farmer of the State is constantly increasing even as Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann underlined the need for making the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for crops a legal guarantee during the national council meeting of NITI Aayog.
“Our agricultural growth rate is about 3.3% per annum. Productivity is high in the State, which is ₹1.57 lakh per hectare. The State’s growth rate is about 8.7%, while the country’s labour productivity growth rate is 3.3% – these figures indicate that the income of the farmer of the State is constantly increasing. The share of Horticulture and Animal Husbandry is increasing in the agriculture sector,” said Mr. Lal, adding that the use of the latest technology and crop diversification is being promoted in Haryana.
In his address, Mr. Mann said that making MSP on the crops a legal guarantee is the need of the hour so that interests of farmers can be safeguarded. Also, the MSP must be remunerative as the input cost of agriculture has enhanced manifolds and farmers are not getting right price of their harvest, he said.
Mr. Mann rejected the committee on MSP constituted by the Government of India and demanded that it should be reconstituted with what he termed “real farmers” as its members. He said that the present committee is dominated by arm chair economists who don’t have any knowledge about agriculture. Experts of agriculture along with all the stakeholders must be made members of this committee, he said.
Diversification of crops
Mr. Mann said that diversification of crops is urgently needed to take farmers out of the wheat-paddy crop cycle on one hand, while on the other, saving the depleting groundwater level is necessary. He said that out of a total of 150 blocks, the water level in 117 blocks is in dark zone in Punjab.
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said that the State government is implementing ₹1,010 crore ‘Himachal Pradesh Crop Diversification Scheme’ in all the districts. He said 31,584 orchardists of the State were covered under State-sponsored schemes whereas 4.15 lakh orchardists have benefited under Centrally-sponsored schemes during the last four and half years. He said to double the income of farmers, 3,590 ‘gram panchayats’ have been covered under “Prakritik Kheti Khushal Kisan Yojna”, adding that farmers had saved about ₹9.75 crore by switching over to natural manure instead of chemical fertilizers.
