A national conference on agriculture with the theme “Kharif Campaign-2017” was inaugurated by the Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh on Tuesday in Delhi. The campaign would go on for two days.
Applauding the efforts of the Central and State Governments in attaining an estimated record production of about 272 million metric tons in food-grains and 33.6 million tons oilseeds, Singh said the govt would not rest till the farmers’ income is doubled.
The quantum jump in pulses production to 22.14 million metric tons also camp up for discussion. A roadmap has been prepared to scale up pulses production to 24 MMTs by 2021, Singh added.
Others who participated in the Campaign included Parshottam Rupala and Shri Sudarshan Bhagat, Ministers of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare. The Conference was also attended by Secretary and other officials of the Ministry.
Singh pointed out to the encouraging first stage forecast of the South West monsoon during Kharif 2017 and exhorted the States to make all necessary arrangements of agricultural inputs for farmers.
Minister complimented states that have achieved the target of delivery of soil health cards to all farmers and exhorted the others to complete the first phase by in the next 2-3 months. He pointed out that the second cycle of the Soil Health Card scheme will commence in May 2017.
The Secretary informed that eight Groups have been formed for in depth discussion on issues like Market reforms , Sustainability of pulses production in the coming season, Best Mechanization practices to avoid burning of straw, Utilization of Corpus fund under PMKSY, Doubling of farmers’ income based on paper circulated by Prof Ramesh Chand, Member, NITI Aayog, Making North-East and the Himalayan States a power houses of horticultural development – Organic Farming and issues related to Horticulture.