New Delhi: The Vice President of India, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu will inaugurate and participate in a two-day National Consultation on ‘Making Agriculture Sustainable and Profitable’, at Pune, Maharashtra tomorrow. This Consultation is organized in the context of the ongoing debate and efforts at various levels to double farmers’ incomes by 2022.
The two day brain storming on various issues relating to farm sector will be attended by the Union Minister for Agriculture, Shri Radhamohan Singh, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Shri Devendra Fadnavis, former Union Minister for Agriculture and senior Parliamentarian, Shri Sharad Pawar, former Agriculture Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Shri V. Sobhanadreeswara Rao, veteran Farm Scientist, Prof. M.S. Swaminathan, renowned farm sector expert and economist, Prof. Ashok Gulati, senior officials of Central Government agencies like ICAR, farm scientists, representatives of Farmers Unions, CII, FICCI, NAFED and other stakeholders.
The two-day Consultation is being organised by the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) of which the Vice President of India is the Chairman and Shri Vaikuntha Mehta National Institute of Cooperative Management, Pune.
The two-day Consultation will focus on six themes viz. Creating an enabling policy framework; Intensification of farming diversification to high value agriculture and supplementation of incomes through allied activities; Marketing and Agri-logistics; Agricultural Trade Policy; Transfer of technology from labs to the land and Agricultural credit and insurance.
The concept paper for the National Consultation prepared by IIPA refers to the felt need and an opportunity to reorient governance and further improve policy and programmes to transform farmers’ lives. The two day deliberations will result in practical recommendations to fine tune existing policies and programmes to enhance farmers’ incomes. They will also focus on the inherent biases in the existing policy framework and suggest a way forward to make it more balanced. Policy interventions required to enable farmers move towards green and sustainable agricultural practices and also to address the paradox of rising foodgrain production and per capita incomes co-existing with increasing number of malnourished children are also on the agenda.
The concluding session will be presided over by the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Shri Radhamohan Singh.
The National Consultation on farm sector issues is the second in the ‘Swarajya to Surajya’ series of National Consultations initiated by the IIPA at the behest of the Vice President, Shri Venkaiah Naidu. The first one on ‘Strengthening of Local Self Governments’ was held in Marczh this year in Hyderabad.
