Sushma Swaraj Defines Road Map to Doubling Food Production in Less than Five Years

New Delhi: Speaking at the “Doubling food production in five years’ Sushma Swaraj, MP (leader of Opposition, Lok Sabha) said that this is possible and will be done in a shorter time frame, with focus from the entire polity. The process is a like a building a necklace, where every point has to be carefully given attention and then threaded in a strong string for the necklace to deliver the desired results. She clearly laid out the required agenda for doubling food production in less than five years with explicit examples where it has been more than achieved in NDA ruled states over the last 5 years.

 “Madhya Pradesh had an agriculture growth rate of 2.50 percent in 2006-07 and in 2011-12 it has an agriculture growth rate of 18.96 percent, a nine times increase in growth in five years. Gujarat has an agriculture growth rate of 7.06 percent today a seven times increase over 1.10 percent in 06-07. Bihar has increased its rice yield per hectare by 1000kg to 2089 kg per hectare today. Wheat yield in MP has gone up by 800kg per hectare in the same period,” she said.

 Swaraj laid out an eight point agenda for agriculture reforms to not just meet the target of doubling food production in five years but to make it happen in a shorter time frame.

1. Availability of cultivable land: a) Saving the existing cultivable land from competing developments; SEZ, while an important part of economic growth should be discouraged from coming up on cultivable and productive land. b) Increasing the quantity of cultivable land with irrigation and other solutions C) Increasing yields in the land under cultivation by soil health care. Soil should be treated like the human body, its problems diagnosed and specific solutions (not mass) proposed. Madhya Pradesh in last 5 years increased cultivable land from 7 lakh hectares to 22 lakh hectares. Gujarat introduced drip irrigation and micro (sprinkler) irrigation in 4,73,000 hectares of land from the earlier 43,000 hectare in a period of 5 years. These are many fold increases.

2.Availability of quality seeds will become a reality with the seed bill in the parliament. Karnataka has created seed and nutrient banks for its farmers to ensure that they get the highest possible yield for their efforts.

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