The President, Ms Pratibha Patil, today called upon the corporate biggies of the country to invest in the agriculture sector especially in the rain-fed farming within India instead of looking opportunities in other countries.

“The rain-fed area offers good scope and should be tapped by the business houses... You need not go for investment outside India. There is ample scope for investment here. Agriculture is the best sector I would like to recommend,” Ms Patil said at the brainstorming session on prospects of rain-fed farming with special reference to engaging the corporate sector.

The private sector can help increase farm productivity through their investment in areas dependent on vagaries of monsoon, she said.

About 60 per cent of the country's total cultivated area is under rain-fed farming and approximately 45 per cent rice, 89 per cent pulses and 85-95 per cent cereals are grown in these areas, she added.

“Unless we make the rain-fed areas ‘the cradle for a second green revolution', these will continue to remain under-invested undermining the full potential of the agriculture sector as a whole.”

She said that though many of the Indian companies have already developed some interesting business models of engagement with the farming community, “but there is scope for more crop or product specific, multi-crop and livestock development specific models to be evolved to enhance the overall productivity in these areas.”

“I urge the corporate sector to take this as a challenge and evolve commercially viable business models in respect of foodcrops also ensuring food security in the country. Such models can work well both for food and commercial crops...,” she said.

A collaborated approach from the private companies would go a long way in addition to the capacity building exercise very urgently needed in the pursuit of bring agriculture and industry together.

Ms Patil, who hails from Vidarbha, a semi-arid region of Maharashtra, suggested that the corporate houses “can set dedicated funds for entrepreneurship development and capacity building among farmers in dry land areas and create replicable models of group formation and leadership among farmers”.

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