Doubling farm income: Agri Min discussing panel recommendations

Agriculture Ministry is met to consider a host of recommendations by an inter-ministerial committee on doubling farmers’ income by 2022, said Union agriculture secretary Sanjay Agarawal.

The meeting on Wednesday, chaired by Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, is examining the draft recommendations of the panel headed by the National Rainfed Area Authority CEO Ashok Dalwai, Agarawal said while talking at an event organised by the Indian Council of Food and Agriculture (CIFA), an NGO.

The Dalwai committee, set up in April 2016, looked into the entire gamut of Indian agricultural ecosystem, including input and risk management, post-harvest and marketing strategies, issues relating to sustainability. It has submitted a voluminous report, running into 13 volumes.

Among the suggestions by the committee was to not just double nominal income but the real, or inflation-adjusted farm incomes, he said. The idea was to increase the average farmer income to ₹1,92,000 per annum by 2022 based on 2015-16 wholesale prices, from the current levels of ₹96,000, he said.

Opening the 11th CIFA Global Agriculture Leadership Summit, agricultural scientist M S Swaminathan said since the World Trade Organisation came into being, farmers in developing countries, for whom agriculture is the primary livelihood, unlike their counterparts in the advanced parts of world who pursue industrial agriculture, have been facing new challenges.

Indian farmers must get access to global markets so that exchange of technology can take place, he said. He also emphasised the need for involving women and youth in agriculture which he said would pave the way for further improvement of the sector.