Income of Lakhs of Farmers Has Doubled in Past 8 Years: Says Tomar on ICAR Foundation Day

New Delhi, July 16 (PTI) Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said on Saturday All the combined efforts of the Centre and state governments, scientists, and the farming community, lakhs of farmers' incomes have doubled over the past eight years.

In addition, Tomar released an e-book by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) that details the success of 75,000 farmers whose incomes have doubled or increased over the past eight years.

The ICAR reported that for these farmers, the overall increase in income ranged from 125.44 to 271.69 percent, mostly due to horticulture and field crops in the majority of states.

In 2016, the government had set an ambitious target to double the farmers’ income by 2022.

In his speech on the 94th foundation day of the ICAR, Tomar said there are 14 crore farmers in the country, of which 85 percent are small and marginal.

"Over the last eight years, the agriculture sector has been actively promoted and strengthened. In addition to more than double, many farmers' revenues have increased by more than twice” according to the ministry.

As part of the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav to celebrate 75 years of India's independence, Tomar said the ICAR had last year decided to identify 75,000 such farmers and record their success stories.

He complimented the ICAR and Krishi Vigyan Kendra for taking up this exercise successfully.

This e-book of 75,000 successful farmers from all across the country documents the efforts made by the Centre, States, hard work of Farmers, wise policies of Governments, and research of Scientists, Tomar said, adding that these success stories will also motivate other Farmers.

The documentation of 75,000 prosperous farmers has been completed, according to a statement from the ICAR, using 2016–17 as the benchmark year and 2020–21 as the impact year.

An "improvement in revenue was visible across all the sectors of agriculture including field crops, horticulture, livestock, fisheries and farm/non-farm enterprises," according to the ICAR's overview of these success stories. The overall increase in income ranged from 125.44 percent in Ladakh to 271.69 percent in Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

Farmers in West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, and Puducherry reported income increases of more than 200%. Most other states had an increase in income of between 150 and 200 percent overall.

According to ICAR, 14 states—J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Jharkhand, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala—had horticulture as their primary source of income.

The top three states with a share of more than 60% of total income are Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, and Goa, it continued.

Field crops continued to be the primary source of revenue in 11 States, including Punjab, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry, and Telangana, despite their percentage of total income dropping from 2016–17 to 2020–21. The top three states in this category are Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Haryana, it stated.

According to the ICAR, In 2016–17 and In 2020–21, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Nagaland, livestock remained to be a significant source of overall revenue.