The Union Agriculture Minister, Radha Mohan Singh has appealed to the agriculture scientists that they should develop techniques adaptable to the needs of huge number of marginal farmers in the country. He was speaking on the occasion of completion of centenary year of IRAR- Central Plantation Crops Research Institute (CPCRI) situated at Kasargod in Kerala.
Agricultural holdings in Kerala are 0.22 hectare against the national average of 1.15 hectare. Therefore, it is necessary to adopt unified agriculture system as well as low volume – high value crops so as to make agriculture a profit making sector, Singh said.
By adopting multi dimensional crops cycle system, with the inclusion of coconut along with black pepper, banana, pineapple, ginger, turmeric, jaifal and jimicand, the farmers of the state will be benefited, he underlined.
Singh said India is among the world’s leading coconut producer nations. Kerala has a significant contribution in this. In the year 2015-16, coconut products worth 1450 cr. rupees have been exported, according to Coconut Development Board figures, he said.
Union Agriculture Minister is right in saying that ICAR agricultural scientists should help farmers by providing with right technological packages but what is he doing to assess why ICAR scientists are not able to do so and take corrective measures to strengthen ICAR, KVVs, SAUs and state level extension systems. All these institutions are performing poorly while spending huge amounts of budgetary funds. Committees after committees have noted that the ICAR system has become top heavy and inefficient while the state level extension systems are unable to serve more than 10-20% of farmers and that too not so effectively.