Agri growth may cross 4 percent this year: Pawar


New Delhi: India's farm growth may cross four per cent in 2011-12 on the back of monsoon rains, which are expected to be normal this year as per the Met Department. "Our efforts will be to maintain four per cent agriculture growth this year and beyond that if monsoon cooperates," Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said here. The growth target for the previous fiscal was also four per cent but the country's agriculture output expanded by 5.6 per cent, helped by good rains. Pawar said farmers are ready to sow Kharif (summer) crops. There are adequate quantities of vital inputs like fertiliser and seeds. In the backdrop of record wheat production in 2010-11, Pawar said the government would consider the demand for allowing export of the grain.
Source: PTI