Increase Investments in the Agriculture to Overcome Challenges of Climate Change

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu said the country’s farmers should be provided with knowledge and essential resources to make farming viable and attractive.

He was interacting with scientists, faculty members and research fellows at the National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE) at Hyderabad. The Vice President said there was a need to make agriculture sustainable, viable and attractive by creating required infrastructure, providing timely credit and value addition to farm produce.

The Central Government’s e-NAM project is the way forward for proper marketing. “Agrarian distress is mainly due to high costs of inputs, small and tenant farmers, production loss, instability in yields, low prices, climate change, droughts, rain-fed cultivation, poor irrigation and debts….” “In order to address these key areas, I think that the most critical need is to establish a dialogue with farmers and provide them with knowledge and material resources to increase their incomes,” he said.

Naidu further said providing information to farmers on the demand for their produce in advance was essential to prevent distress sale. Providing affordable and reasonable credit to farmers is also equally important. Loan waiver was not a permanent solution as it would not help in creating long-term sustainable activity, he noted.

The Vice President also wanted institutions such as MANAGE to educate the farmers on the need to diversify crops to overcome challenges of climate change and sustain their incomes.

Chander Mohan

Krishi Jagran/New Delhi