Properly guided farmer is key to farm productivity: Pawar

New Delhi, June 12 (UNI) Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar today said farmers should be given relevant information and guidance in simple language so that they can assimilate it to generate better returns from farming activities.

The Minister said if farmers are guided about scientific use of inputs - especially balanced use of fertilisers, efficient use of water, marketing, animal husbandry, credit availability and other areas of farmers' interest the adoption of new technologies and scientific agronomic practices will improve.

''This in turn will improve the overall farm productivity,'' he argued.

At the national level, the demand for foodgrains is increasing because of rising population and improving standards of living.

In such a scenario, the only way to have sustained food security is to raise farm productivity, the Minister said and added that media can play a major role in doing so by providing proper guidance and information to the farmer.

Mr Pawar felicitated Doordarshan and All India Radio on producing programmes on agriculture which, according to feedback reports, have generally been appreciated by farmers. However, there is need to improve the content to make the programmes more locally relevant and easy to assimilate.

Besides guiding the farmer on farming matters, the programmes should also inform him about government's schemes and guide him to use them, he said.

The Minister was speaking at the first meeting of the Apex Committee on Mass Media Support to Agriculture Extension. Besides concerned Departments, Doordarshan, All India Radio, States and farmers were represented in the Committee.

Mr Pawar also launched a 'Content Scheduling and Monitoring Portal'. This portal gives details of agricultural programmes broadcast / telecast by all Stations of All India Radio and Kendras of Doordarshan.

The portal is available at: dacnet.nic.in/csms.

UNI