Focus on higher yields, contract farming

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, JAN. 23. The strategy paper on agriculture and allied departments, released by the Chief Minister, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, on Tuesday, lays emphasis on stepping up yields while cutting down production costs through a series of Governmental and private initiatives to make farming a viable economic activity.

The white paper envisages a bigger role for contract farming, consolidation of lands at the farmer level and a major shift of labour from agriculture to the opportunities in services and industry.

As of now, the agriculture and allied sectors provide employment to 64.55 per cent of the State's population and contribute 30 per cent of the State's Gross Domestic Product. Explaining the objectives of the farm policy, the Chief Minister said while the growth and production levels would continue to soar, the dependence on this sector for employment would gradually decline.

``There are countries where agriculture provides hardly 4 per cent of employment opportunities,'' Mr. Naidu said. Keeping the crisis faced by the farmers due to the price crash in view, the strategy paper dealt with the issue of strengthening the marketing network, creation of cold storage facilities, removal of movement restrictions and strengthening of Rytu bazaars.

But the Chief Minister desired that the Centre had to play a bigger role to ensure better returns to farmers by regulating imports and exports of agricultural products. He said that the Government was able to handle the crisis effectively and 30 lakh tonnes of rice was procured till now as against 22 lakh tonnes procured during the same period last year.

The procurement in January was 7.63 lakh tonnes against the targeted 10 lakh tonnes. In February, another 10 lakh tonnes would be procured. But the paddy arrivals into the markets were meagre and, therefore, only 72,000 tonnes of paddy could be procured as against the targeted 10 lakh tonnes by the Central and State agencies.

The Chief Minister said greater efforts were called for by the Government of India to provide international market information so that farmers can be guided in advance on raising the crops which yielded better returns. On its part, the State Government was setting up a committee to study the implications of the WTO regime. The Government proposed to use market intelligence and information to neutralise the mismatch between production and demand.

Mr. Naidu said the production of foodgrain and cash crops was expected to be stepped up to 194 lakh tonnes by 2004- 2005 of which rice alone would account for 154 lakh tonnes. The white paper also focuses on the productivity-wise development targets for major crops.

The rice yield is proposed to be increased from 2,887 kg per hectare to 3,443 per hectare, groundnut from 948 kg per hectare to 1,461 kg per hectare and cotton from 294 kg per hectare to 520 kg per hectare.

The white paper details initiatives to promote custom hiring centres for agro machinery, soil-testing facilities in the private sector at every market yard, one research station for each district, automatic weather forecasting stations in each district, use of KU and C band facilities for improving agricultural extension and appointment of agricultural officers on a contract basis.

A legal framework and enforcement of contract farming is also being worked out. Initially, degraded forests and Government lands would be entrusted to companies interested in contract farming. Farmers would be motivated to participate in contract farming by leasing out their lands. The experiments at Kuppam in contract farming would be replicated in other areas, the Chief Minister explained.

In the Vision 2020 document, an average annual growth of 5.7 per cent in agriculture was envisaged in real terms. The agricultural sector's GDP would grow four times to Rs. 92,500 crores from Rs. 22,810 crores in 1995-96.

The white paper also set mid-term targets for horticulture, animal husbandry, fisheries and sericulture.

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