Minister allays farmers' fears

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, JUNE 25. The Union Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Nitish Kumar, has assured farmers that the Government will provide them all necessary safeguards to face the challenges arising out of the WTO and seek to establish a fair agricultural trading system to ensure a level-playing field for all WTO members.

The Government, he said, had in mind several measures such as import duties, anti-dumping and countervailing duties, safeguards and sanitary and phyto-sanitary standards to protect the farmers from dumping of subsidised imports.

Inaugurating the expert consultation on science for sustainable food security, nutritional adequacy and poverty alleviation in the Asia-Pacific Region here today, he said a major challenge in exploiting the country's export potential related to raising the quality of agricultural produce to global standards.

For this, quality consciousness had to be created among farmers and agro-processors.

He said harnessing information technology, e-commerce, and quality management would not only yield increased export earnings, but also provide stimulating and rewarding employment which in turn would attract and retain youth in farm-related occupations.

The Union Minister for Rural Development, Mr. Venkaiah Naidu, who presided, said farmers should be provided with technical support to increase production at a low cost to increase their income.

Stressing the need for evolving a national consensus to control population, he said it was the primary reason for increasing poverty in the country. In the absence of a worthwhile solution to the population boom, hunger, poverty, and deprivation could not be abolished. The Government had decided to form 14 lakh self-help groups as it had been found that such groups had helped reduce unemployment in rural areas and mobilise funds for the local people.

Mr. R.Jeevanantham, State Minister for Agriculture, said agriculture was still a gamble for small farmers, dependent on the vagaries of the monsoon. To provide assured irrigation to the farmers, he suggested early linking of rivers in South India. He wanted rain harvesting to be taken up as a mass movement with the involvement of the local people.

Mr. Peter Rosenegger, FAO representative in India and Bhutan, said while there had been a considerable increase in food production in India, there should be improvement in quality too as consumers had become quality-conscious. Moreover, in the wake of WTO, quality would be watchword in international market.

Prof. M.S.Swaminathan, Chairman, MSSRF, suggested formation of rural knowledge centres with modern facilities to provide technical guidance to farmers for improving productivity.

Prof. R.B.Singh, Regional representative for Asia and Pacific, FAO, Bangkok, said called for the effective use of science and technology for achieving `ever-green revolution'.

Prof. P.C.Kesavan, Executive Director, MSSRF, in his welcome address, said the purpose of the meet was to review the progress made in alleviating poverty since the last FAO summit in 1996.

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