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

3.Fertilizers have to be made available to farmers in required quantity and at the right time as per the requirements of local crop and conditions. In Karnataka the government is ensuring fertilizer availability as per the need of each taluka.

4.Pesticides need to be made available according to local needs in the right dosage and in a timely manner. Here solutions like narrowcasting, introduced under Swaraj’s tenure as Information & Broadcasting minister, can play a critical role with agriculture programming specific to the needs of the nearby areas.

5.Fair procurement price has to be provided to farmers for their crops to make agriculture a profitable venture. Minimum support price has to be adjusted to take in to account the increase in input prices. We cannot have situations of crop holiday as in Andhra Pradesh. Buying agencies should procure in time and in systematic manner with farmer centricity in mind.

6.Storage is woefully short and outdated in the country. Nearly 66 million tonnes worth Rs 90,000 cr of the record 235 million tonne food grain production got destroyed. In addition our storage operates on a last in first out principal leading to the older stock rotting inside. For fruits we require cold chains; these in turn need infrastructure and power, which is chronically short in our country.

Also Read: 25 Pct Population Hungry in India Even With Excess Grain Stock