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“Substantive reforms in land policy are required to achieve economies of scale in agriculture,” Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu said.
Addressing the 47th Founder’s Day of the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) in Bengaluru, Naidu said: “Absentee land lords in many States have put large tracts of land out of productive use. Promotion of contract farming, legislation on land leasing and encouragement of land sharing among both farmers and landowners keeping interest of farmers in mind may be some alternative policy options.”
On water use, Naidu stressed that there has to be a much better understanding. “The future growth in agriculture will be knowledge and technology driven facilitated by protection and management of ground water and surface water. 70 per cent of irrigation is provided by groundwater, as the current crop pattern is leading to groundwater over exploitation, it is crucial to cultivate low-water high-value crops using groundwater.” He further said: “In addition, due to high probability of well failure, farmers are bearing a large proportion of cost of groundwater themselves, a proper minimum support price (MSP) policy for groundwater crops needs to be formulated.”
In addition, support to individual bore well recharge efforts by farmers and creating awareness on sustainable use of groundwater resource through irrigation extension need emphasis.
On the need to develop climate change-resilient farming practices, Naidu said “Climate change remains the major challenge impacting productivity of crops, livestock, dairy and fisheries. I am glad that government has introduced two major responses to climate change — National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture for Development and National Initiatives for Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) for research.”
These key initiatives are aimed at transforming agriculture into a climate resilient production system through adaptation and mitigation measures. While initial learnings are promising, there should be a greater convergence of these initiatives with the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY), MGNREGA etc.
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