The Hindu Business Line : `Time for changes in farm produce marketing Act'

Sahai says
Real challenge for Govt is to make farmers self-reliant.
Incentives like tax holidays needed to attract investors.
Farmers must be complete partners in supply chain.

Mr Subodh Kant Sahai

Kolkata May 23 The need of the hour is demand-driven farming, riding on the basis of a business model, especially if the Indian farmer's interests have to be fully protected.

Timely industrial intervention is required to create the necessary backward linkages.

Speaking at the inaugural session of a workshop on "Linking farmers to markets: The food-processing way", organised by Assocham here on Wednesday, Mr Subodh Kant Sahai, Union Minister for Food Processing, said since investments in food-processing have come down, special incentives like tax holidays and other concessions by States were needed to attract investors.

He said the forthcoming National Development Council meeting with the single agenda of challenges before Indian agriculture was expected to discuss this issue in detail, particularly with inputs from the State Chief Ministers. He visualised a major role for the States in this regard.

Serious farming

Calling for changes in the State Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee Acts to open up the sector and pave the way for serious farming, the Minister said the real challenge before the Government now was to make the Indian farmer self-reliant.

He felt the farmer should be able to sell his produce at competitive rates direct to the markets, super stores and retail shops so that his margins remain respectable.

According to Mr Sahai, the other challenge was to spread awareness among farmers so that they emerge as complete partners in the supply management chain, from producing of grain to supplies to end users, so that neither the supplies shrink nor its flow at the retail end stagnates, maintaining a balanced demand-supply situation.

Priority area

Seeking investments in food processing, he said the enabling investor-friendly environment has been created through tax concessions for setting up cold chains to prevent the enormous post-harvest losses taking place.

Food processing is one of high priorities for the Government now, with higher outlays proposed in the Eleventh Plan, and many more new food processing units should come up in the various rice producing States like West Bengal, he added.

According to Mr Mohanta Chatterjee, Minister for Food Processing and Horticulture, West Bengal, the State Government was now working on a food-processing policy, with focus on employment generation and prevention of farm wastages.

"We are also looking at intermediate processing through a Public-Private Partnership model", he pointed out.

Urging the farm cooperatives and the corporates to work together, Mr Sanjeev Chopra, Secretary, Department of Horticulture & Food Processing, West Bengal, said the bonding with the farming community should take place at the field level.

`No quick-fix solution'

Suggesting that there was no `quick-fix' solution for addressing the problems of farmers, he said "profits, risks and responsibilities go together".

The various stages, according to him, were linking self-help groups with markets for micro credit, strengthening farm extension capabilities, developing local entrepreneurship in food processing, removing policy and procedural bottlenecks, and achieving convergence by also addressing problems not related to food processing, like linking farmers to the markets.

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