Regional inequilities have surfaced in green revolution: Pawar

Mumbai, May 27: Union Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar today said that initial sparks of Green revolution are now waning and lamented that shortcomings have already started surfacing in the reen revolution-engineered growth of India's agriculture.

''The growth has failed to extend itself to all crops or sections of the country as the revolution remained largely confined to foodgrains only and to certain parts of the country,'' said Mr Pawar.

He pointed out that regional inequalities had surfaced sharply, with certain parts of the country like Punjab, Haryana and west Uttar Pradesh leading the show.

Speaking at a function to commemorate the first anniversary of 'Agrowon', a marathi supplement on agriculture brought out by Sakaal group, mainly about 'second green revolution and future of agriculture', the minister said.

''Now a second green revolution needs to be engineered through technology-driven interventions and addressal of market needs with ample focus on both cereals and non food crops including horticulture.'' The Indian farmer should be seen not only as a producer for the indigenous market but also as a global player, he added.

Agriculture research and extension services have to play an important role in the proposed endeavour for the second green revolution, he said adding that the agriculture extension system has suffered a decline and it has to be revamped.

''The technologies offered should be affordable and appropriate for the farmers, especially small and marginal ones,'' he added.

He further said dry land farming should no longer suffer any neglect and efforts are on to set up a national rainfed area authority.

The second green revolution has to be knowledge based and has to feature new realities of development in the 21st century.

''Self sufficiency alone in food is not what carries criticality in the changing agriculture context of India as the farmer has to be well equipped and oriented to play his role in the national- international fronts so that agriculture contributes substantially to country's economic growth,'' Mr Pawar said.

Agriculture contributes nearly 20 per cent to India's GDP and 13 per cent of its total export provides employment to more than 50 per cent of the country's workforce and provides livelihood' support to more than 650 million people, Mr Pawar said.

Mr Pawar stressed the need to reduce the burden of unemployment on agriclutre and added that as long as efforts are not made to reduce that burden, agriculture will not become viable. Hence farm income should be supplemented by off-farm economic activities. He also said that the central government has reduced the interest rates on loans to farmers upto seven per cent and added that in next two years the percentage would come down even more.

Mr Pawar said ninty per cent of land development banks are closed in the country and added that Vaidyanathan committee's report on these banks has also been received and soon the government would take a decision on it.

He also said the banks had given a loan of Rs 86,000 crore to farmers for crops two years earlier, while this year it has reached Rs 1,55,000 crore.

Mr Pawar expressed the need to disburse more loan amount. He said only 40 per cent of the farmers are getting the benefit of the loans, while nearly 60 per cent are not getting the benefit due to various reasons including their inability to repay the laons. In such cases, he said the scheme of one-time settlement should be implemented.

Mr Pawar also said farmers should be provided loans for purposes other than crops .

He also said integrated markets would come up at seven places including Mumbai, Nasik, and Haryana, which will benefit the farmers in selling their yeild.

He said contract farming was beneficiary to farmers as the ownership of land and farming rights continued to remain with the farmers and the contractor only gives seeds, fertilizers and asks for a particular yield.

Speaking about Jatropha plant from which bio-diesel is generated, Mr Pawar said the plantation is not viable for farmers at present.

He said petroleum and other companies are working on developing a new seed of the Jatropha plant, but as long as the plantation does not give some concessions, it would not be beneficial, he maintained.

He also said sugarcane which is getting Rs 1,200 per tonne is likely to fetch around Rs 1,500.

UNI