MARGAO
Laying stress on contract farming and community farming to give a big boost to agriculture in the State, Agriculture Minister Vijai Sardesai on Thursday mulled replacement of the Agriculture Produce Marketing Board with a modern agriculture marketing Act to do away with the middlemen and increase the earnings of farmers.
Sardesai further said his ministry will stop launching new schemes to promote agriculture, but will devise ways and means to increase the support price for farmers engaged in agricultural production.
Addressing the media after launching weed clearing machine at the Fatorda water body on Thursday, Sardesai said the government will consider enacting the contract farming Act to revive agriculture since the State has a fragmented hold. “I feel that the only solution to revive agriculture is through contract farming and through the community. This concept we would like to create with government backing since no land owner wants to lose rights over their land,” he said.
Saying that the government will intervene as a facilitator rather than as a regulator of agricultural activity, Sardesai said, “We have to supplement Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar’s efforts to promote clean Goa. Parrikar is talking about clean Goa with solid waste management. We will have to supplement his clean Goa with green Goa as contract farming can lead to agricultural activity 24x7.”
He said the State agriculture department will work in tandem with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to double the income of farmers by 2022. “This vision for a New India not only envisages increase in production, but also the farmers’ profitability. The government will move ahead with the slogan New India is new reforms and new reforms for the profitability of farmers,” he said, adding that the entire agricultural activity will be reoriented from production centric to income centric.
Laying stress on marketing of agriculture produce for the benefit of the farmers, the minister said that the Centre is contemplating to replace the Agriculture Produce Marketing Board with a modern agriculture marketing Act.
“We intend to create marketing facilities for the farmers so that they get a better price for their produce. This, we plan to set up across the State, beginning from Fatorda,” he added.
