Agri ministers meet to decide on draft policy for farmers

HYDERABAD: National Commission on Farmers chairman Dr MS Swaminathan on Tuesday said, a national policy for farmers might soon become a reality. Talking to reporters at a press conference, he said, "Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is expected to take a decision on our draft report at a meet on December 22. The meet will be attended by state agriculture ministers as well." The commission submitted its draft report on October 2.

The Centre is also planning to implement the scientists' report on "more crop and income per drop of water" from June 1 onwards. "The programme will cover 6,000 villages in the country. The ministry of water resources has decided to allocate Rs 50,000 for each village," he said.

The key recommendations of the committee, constituted under the chairmanship of Dr Swaminathan, include micro irrigation technology to increase productivity of crops with less water, crop diversification with high value but less water requiring crops, adequate support to farmers for marketing and access to market information and introduction of weather-based crop insurance protection for minimizing losses.

The commission, he said, has also recommended setting up a price monitoring committee at the state-level for ensuring assured returns to farmers under contract farming system.

According to him, food and water banks were needed in each village to expand the food basket. "We also need to introduce a universal public distribution system covering the entire population. According to estimates, Rs 35,000 crore per year is required to implement this," he said.