The Hindu : Go in for farm reforms, Ajit Singh urges States

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 07, 2002

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Go in for farm reforms, Ajit Singh urges States

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI NOV. 6. The Agriculture Minister, Ajit Singh, today urged State Governments to go in for reforms in the agriculture sector, including in the minimum support price mechanism, in keeping with the changing times.

Inaugurating a national seminar on `Methodological Issues in Fixation of Minimum Support Prices' here today, he said an extensive support system should be developed to protect farmers and fixing of minimum support prices should only be a part of this.

Referring to the changed agricultural scenario in the country, Mr. Singh said that even though India was no longer a scarcity economy and had emerged as an agricultural power, farmers continued to live in pathetic conditions and much needed to be done to improve their lot. Cooperatives could play an important role in providing inputs and marketing, he said.

In his keynote address, Y.K. Alagh, farm economist, advocated the need for a new model on agriculture pricing.

He said the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) should become a tariff commission and suggest the policy changes for the transition to a trading agriculture.

He also stressed the need for harmonising various policies relating to pricing, costs, credit, marketing and technology.

The Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, J.N.L. Srivastav, dispelled the notion that the Government did not agree with the recommendations of CACP.

He said that normally these were accepted except in exceptional cases and with good reason.

The CACP chairman, T. Haque, said agriculture and farmers faced a lot of challenges because of natural calamities as also the falling prices of outputs and rising prices of inputs.

He said the farmers needed to be properly guided and supported by the technology and infrastructure to diversify.

The two-day seminar organised by the CACP will discuss modalities for fixing the minimum support prices.

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