After 10 years of wooing the corporate world through biennial investment meets, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Monday vowed to empower farmers and reach out to seven lakh villages across India to collect old pieces of their farming equipment to build the world’s largest statue, that of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel off the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada river, from his birth anniversary on October 31.
While Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal praised Modi as “a great leader” of India, Madhya Pradesh Agriculture Minister Dr Ramkrishna Kusumaria likened him to Lord Vishnu’s ‘Matsyavatar’ who would save the country.
Inaugurating the two-day ‘Vibrant Gujarat Agriculture Summit 2013’, the first of its kind in India, Modi recalled how Gujarat followed the ‘per drop more crop” mantra, increased land under micro-irrigation from just 12,000 hectares to nine lakh hectares within 10 years and achieved stupendous growth in the State’s farm output. Gujarat is the only State to provide soil health cards to its lakhs of farmers.
He appealed to the nearly 4,000 farmers’ representatives from 542 districts of 29 States and two Union Territories to adopt modern agricultural technology from around the world and think globally using information technology, e-governance and mobile telephony.
Between 1947 and 2013, the contribution of farming to India’s GDP has reduced from 51 per cent to just 14 per cent, Modi said, while regretting that farmers continued to be burdened with debt. “Less than 30 per cent of them get bank loans. The Government of India figures show that 2.70 lakh farmers committed suicide in 20 years, due mainly to usurers’ heavy interest. It can be prevented by simplifying and overhauling loan procedures and making it farmer and crop-centric.”
Giving statistics, Modi said India lagged behind many smaller countries due to lack of adequate productivity per hectare. He also expressed concern over 2,500 farmers joining other professions daily, which might create a major crisis in the future. He stressed on encouraging organic farming, recycling of waste and agricultural exports.
In his address, Badal warned that villages and farmers must not be neglected by the Centre. “Our farmers are docile and suffer losses in silence. But once they rebel, they would be uncontrollable. Don’t wake up the sleeping tiger, else there would be huge losses”, he said while taking the Centre to task for its farming policies. Even as input costs skyrocketed, the Centre did not consult the States while talking of reducing subsidies.
The Punjab CM announced he would hold a similar global summit in his State in February 2014.
Dr Kusumaria said Madhya Pradesh has achieved 18.9 per cent growth in agriculture recently and won many awards. He warned against overuse of chemicals, fertilisers, pesticides and insecticides manufactured by MNCs. The Government must help farmers by compensating 60-70 per cent of their crop losses due to natural disasters. This would make them self-reliant and competitive.
Ashok Gulati, Chairman, Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, Government of India, said India exported 22 million tonnes of foodgrain in 2012-13, something never done in the last 5,000 years. “But we also imported six million tonnes of wheat in 2006.” Recently, States such as Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Bihar have also become high achievers in agriculture. Even after achieving targets of the Food Security regime, India can export 25 million tonnes of foodgrain to Africa and other countries. He also stressed on water conservation for a better future and diversification of agriculture.