Govt gives priority to farm mechanization

CHANDIGARH. (AMN) The union government is giving a high priority to farm
mechanization in order to save labour time and increasing farmers’ income. Speaking
at the inauguration of Agro-Tech 2010,  the
biennial agro technology and business fair here the Union Agriculture Minister
Sharad Pawar, said that  the government
was giving a high priority to farm mechanization in view of its many benefits
to farmers.

Pawar said: “Farm mechanization not only
saves time and labour, cuts down crop production costs, reduces post-harvest
losses; but also promote sustainable use of natural resources through machine
assisted resource-conservation farming such as zero-tillage, raised-bed
planting, precision farming, drip or sprinkler irrigation”.

He said that the future of farm
mechanisation in India may lie in the success of design, development and easy
availability of low-cost, locally customized, user-friendly agricultural
machineries and equipment that would not only suit to the requirements of our
diverse natural resources but also match to the economic strength of the large
and relatively low productive ‘bottom of the pyramid’ of Indian Agriculture.

Pawar called upon the private sector to
participate in a big way so that the true potential of Indian agriculture is
realized. ‘The private sector must come forward with ideas and investment to
bring the much needed vibrancy into our agriculture and allied sectors,’ he
said. ‘While the government continues to revisit its policy interventions at
regular interval to ensure that equitable distribution of benefits accrue
through farm mechanization, there is an urgent need for greater participation
of private enterprises especially in areas of custom hiring, agri-services and
developing low-cost customized implements for catalyzing an accelerated growth
of agricultural mechanization in our country. This has become increasingly
important in view of the rising labour cost. I have been told on innumerable
occasion by farmers in Punjab and Haryana how they are finding extremely difficult to source
agriculture labour. The same is true of Maharashtra, Karnataka and many other States.’

The Minister also informed that the government had launched a Terminal Market
Complex project in public-private-partnership. There has been very good
response to these schemes. He said that the Terminal Market Complex projects in
Patna (Bihar) and Perundurai (Tamil Nadu) have already been approved. In
principle approval has also been provided to the Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra for setting up of
TMC at Chennai, Nagpur, Madurai and Thane respectively.