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Our Bureau

MORE FOR FARM RESEARCH: The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, at the inaugural ceremony of the International Food Policy Research Institute in the Capital on Monday. - Kamal Narang

New Delhi , March 7

POINTING out that the Government is committed to launching the second green revolution, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh on Monday promised rural India a "new deal" to reverse decline in farm investments through increased funds for agricultural research, irrigation and wasteland development.

"Our Government has been voted to power on the wave of agrarian distress, caused partly by the failure of the market and partly by the failure of the State," Dr Singh said inaugurating the New Delhi office of International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

"Our Government will be launching a National Horticulture Mission that is aimed, in part, at stimulating this second green revolution in the range of new crops and commodities," he said.

The Prime Minister said with more advances in science and technology in areas like biotechnology coming from the private sector, it was important to ensure availability of these products to the poor farmers. "The challenge is how to encourage this creativity, this innovativeness and at the same time to ensure that new products and new processes will be far affordable for the vast majority of farmers who live on the edges of subsistence," he said.

He said the Planning Commission was considering setting up a Food and Nutrition Security Watch to function as a "think tank" on food and nutrition security issues as well as a programme-reviewing agency.

The Prime Minister said an important dimension of the "new deal," aimed at reversing the decline in investment in agriculture, was to ensure food and nutritional security of the people, while at the same time augmenting farm incomes and employment through launching of the second green revolution. He said there was a need to promote greater public-private partnership in the areas such as biotechnology, power, irrigation and other rural infrastructure and in agricultural research.

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