Plenty on the plate for farmers
Budget 2017 has much to offer to the farm sector. Here are some of the fruitful takeaways:
The Centre will set up new mini labs at Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) to test soil samples to guage nutrient levels. It will ensure 100 per cent coverage of all 648 KVKs in the country. To accomplish this faster, the Centre will rope in qualified local entrepreneurs to set up additional 1,000 mini labs, andprovide credit-linked subsidy to them.
A micro and long-term irrigation fund will be set up for Nabard, with corpuses of ₹5,000 crore and ₹40,000 crore, respectively.
To enhance the value addition of farmers’ produce, up to ₹75 lakh will be provided to every National Agricultural Market (e-NAM) for establishment of cleaning, grading and packaging facilities. The coverage of e-NAM will be further expanded to 585 Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) from the current 250.
To provide better price realisation and reduce post-harvest losses, the Centre has proposed to integrate farmers who grows fruit and vegetables with agro processing units.
A dairy processing and infrastructure development fund will be set up by Nabard with an initial fund of ₹2,000 crore.