Summit 2011 Deliberations

7/29/2019 Summit 2011 Deliberations

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AGRICULTURE TODAY October 201120

Cover Feature Agriculture leAdership summit

4

th

With the increasing population and deteriorating environment, one of the

biggest concerns of the present time is the food security. There is no othermeans but agriculture growth which can lead us to food security. Policies,schemes and programmes are the need of the hour to meet the demands

of agriculture sector. Farmers are the section of the society who needsspecial focus today. Taking this major concern into consideration, the 4thAgriculture Leadership Summit was organized by Agriculture Today to

discuss the issue of Policy Reforms for Farm Growth.



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AGRICULTURE TODAYOctober 2011 21

The 4th Agriculture

Leadership Sum-

mit was organized

by Agriculture Today on

14th September, 2011 atTaj Palce, New Delhi. The

summit was inaugurated by

the Union Minister of Food

and Consumer Affairs, Prof

KV Thomas in the gracious

presence of Prof YK Alagh,

former Union Minister and

Chairman, IRMA; Prof MS

Swaminathan, pioneer of

Indias Green Revolution; Dr

RK Kusumariya, Agriculture

Minister, Madhya Pradesh;

and Sh B.K Sinha, Secre-tary, Ministry of Rural De-

velopment, Government of

India.

The event started with

a welcome note by Dr MJ

Khan, Chief Editor, Agricul-

ture Today. In his speech,

Dr Khan welcomed the

honorary guests and spoke

about the challenges faced

by Indian agriculture. He

said that Agriculture To-


day will continue its com-

mitment towards the Indian

farmers.

Prof Thomas, in his ad-

dress congratulated Agri-culture Today for organiz-

ing the event. He spoke

about various aspects of

Indian agriculture. He talk-

ed about the proposed food

security bill in detail. The

Food Security Bill proposed

to be introduced in the next

session of parliament will

be a historic step, said the

minister. Prof Thomas said

that several steps have

been taken by his minis-try to make the proposed

bill a success. He added


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that while tak-

ing these steps,

the ministry has

taken in consid-

eration the rec-

ommendations

of both National

Advisory Coun-cil (NAC) and

Economic Advisory Council (EAC).

Food security is not only about

providing food grains but it is also

about providing nutrition, said Prof

Thomas. Another main area of con-

cern in the agriculture sector in the

country as said by the minister is

storage. He said that the ministry

is working on different mechanisms

of food storage and that various

programmes and policies have been

formulated regarding this aspect.He said that the Public Distribu-

tion System (PDS) needs attention

too. The minister believes that the

PDS needs to be modernized by the

state governments. He hoped that

the Agriculture Leadership Summit

will be able to put some light on the

important issues of the agriculture

sector.

In his ad-

dress, Prof MS

Swminathan ,

father of Indias

Green Revolu-

tion talked about

the importance

of public policies

for farm growth.

He said that in the area of policy

formulation, for the rst time the

government has initiated the Na-

tional Policy for Farmers. Prof Swa-

minathan said that the farmer poli-

cies must focus on how to increase

the net income of the farmers. Healso suggested that the Ministry of

Agriculture should be changed to

Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer

Welfare. In his speech, he also high-

lighted the serious concern of Crop

Holiday in Andhra Pradesh. He said

that the Crop Holiday should be a

wakeup call for farm policies. Prof

Swaminathan said that today there

is an urgent need to enhance the

non farm employment in the rural

areas. One of the key points raised

in his address was the lack of syner-gy between various policies for the

farm sector. He said, There is nolack of schemes and programmes

in India, but what is lacking is the

synergy among these schemes and

programmes.

Former Union

Minister, Prof

YK Alagh in his

speech raised

the burning is-

sue of food in-

ation. The ma-

jor point of his

speech was the

question raised by all of us today.

Will the food ination come un-

der control? asked Prof Alagh. He

said, it is time that necessary steps

are taken to bring the rising ination

under control. He said that without

a proper framework, just formulat-

ing macro policies will not help the

farmers. Prof Alagh said that there

is miscalculation in most of the poli-

cies because of the lack of proper

information. India has grossly un-derestimated its urbanization by 40

million people, said Alagh. Accord-

ing to the former minister, improved

technologies, better infrastructure,

proper incentives are some the im-

portant areas that need immediate

attention to im-

prove the agri-

culture sector in

India.

Dr RK Kusumari-

ya, Agriculture

Minister of thestate of Mad-

hya Pradesh shared the plight ofIndian farmers in his speech. The

existence of our farmers is in ques-

tion today, said Dr Kusumariya. He

highlighted the fact that how in our

country farmers are getting poorer

and poorer. Dr Kusumariya spoke

about various areas of the agricul-

ture that need focus. He said that

the group of small and marginal

farmers needs special policies for

their upliftment. Other areas which

he said need more focus are live-

stock management and organic

farming. With the help of activi-

ties like organic farming and carbon

sequestration, we can denitely

achieve food security, the minister

said.

Sh BK Sinha,

Secretary, Min-

istry of Rural

D eve l o pmen t

highlighted the

importance of

Mahatma Gan-dhi National Ru-

ral Employment

Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in the

upliftment of the farmers. He be-

lieves that the programme has had

a salutary effect on the rural people.

Mr Sinha believes that from the agri-

culture point of view, there exists a

tremendous potential in MGNREGA.

If we do improvement in 70 per

cent of our land using MGNREGA,

second Green Revolution can de-

nitely be brought, said Mr Sinha.He said that there is a need of more



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medium and micro policies for our

farmers rather than macro policies.

He added that policy integration at

the grass root level is the key to

success in the agriculture sector.

Political Leaders Session

The Political Leaders Sessionwas held under the chairmanship

of former Minister of State for Agri-

culture, Sh Sompal which included

Sh Sham Lal Sharma, Horticulture

Minister of the state of Jammu and

Kashmir and former minister Oscar

Fernandes.

The session

started with

the address of

Sh Sham Lal

Sharma who

spoke aboutthe tremendous

potential of ag-

riculture and

horticulture sector in the state of

Jammu and Kashmir. He also talked

about the various achievements of

the state in the horticulture sector.

Sh Sharma highlighted the various

programmes and schemes initiated

by the state to promote horticul-

ture in the state. He said that the

state of J&K is fully committed in

developing the agriculture sector in

the state. Sh Sharma concluded

his speech by expressing his happi-

ness for winning State Horticulture

Leadership Award 2011

In his speech,

former Union

Minister, Os-

car Fernandes

spoke about the

various aspects

of agriculture

sector like thecrisis of labour

shortage in the rural areas. How to

make up the loss of labour in the

agriculture sector is a key issue to

be addressed, said Mr Fernandes.

He said that the focus should be on

each and every farmer family and

steps must be taken to nd out

ways for supplementary income for

them. In his address, Sh Fernandes

also talked about the problems

faced by the sugarcane farmers in

the country.

Sh Sompal con-

gratulated the

Agriculture To-

day for organiz-

ing the summit.

He said that In-

dian agriculture

needs a com-

plete re look.

More investment and more budget-

ary allocations are required for theagriculture sector, said Sh Sompal.

He brought out the issue of waste-

land management in his address.

He said that policies are required to

harness wasteland in the country.

Sh Sompal also said that the agri-

culture sector needs more research

and study. He believes that the

Indian biodiversity is unmatched

on earth but not enough has been

done to harness this rich diversity.

He also said that livestock manage-

ment needs more focus too. TheAgriculture and Livestock potential

has been grossly underestimated.

said Mr Sompal.

Industry Leaders Session

The Industry Leaders Session

was held under the chairmanship

of Salil Singhal, MD, PI Industries

Limited which included prominent

industry leaders Dr S Bhattachrjee,

MD, NERAMAC; Mr Kapil Mehan,

MD, Coromandal International Limit-

ed; Mr Raul Rebello, Vice President-

Strategy Initiatives, Axis Bank; and

Dr AK Rajput, ED, All India Poultry

Breeders Association.

In his speech,

Dr S Bhattacha-

rjee spoke about

the problems

and issues of

agri business in

the North East

Region of thecountry. He said

that the main challenges of agri

business in the region are: poverty,

small land holdings, natural calami-

ties, and weak institutional credit

system among others. He said that

it is important that the exotic prod-

ucts of North East especially hor-

ticultural produces like Kiwi needs

promotion and attention. Dr Bhat-

tacharjee said that the horticulture

sector in the North East has a tre-

mendous potential. He hoped thatthe summit will help in taking for-

ward the cause of farmers of the

North East.

Mr Kapil Mehan

in his address

highlighted the

issue of crop

nutrition and

soil health. He

said that while

formulating poli-

cies, the view

point of the industries is often



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unheard. Mr Mehan believes that

sectors like fertilizer needs policy

reforms. He said that the soils are

becoming decient in micro nutri-

ents and immediate actions are re-

quired to check this problem. India

has mastered the art of correctingpolicies only when there is a crisis,

said Mr Mehan. He said that there is

a gap between the formulation and

implementation of policies. Mr Me-

han believes that there is an urgent

need of a debate to nd out wheth-

er agriculture should be a Central,

State or Concurrent subject. He

said that the time has come to move

away from too many notications

and approvals. He believes that the

focus should shift from productivity

to farmers income and well being.We should provide to farmers India

as a market and not just his locality

or the district, said Mr Mehan.

The Vice Presi-

dent, Strategy

Initiatives of Axis

Bank, Mr Raul Re-

bello in his speech

spoke about the

ow of rural credit

to farmers. He

pointed out that

from 2002 to 2010, the ow of agri

credit has almost increased seven

times. He said that the banks tend

to look at agriculture as a mandatory

business rather than a willing one.

Mr Rebello said that steps must be

taken to change such an attitude.

He added that policy reforms arerequired to increase the credit ow

to agriculture. In his speech, Mr re-

bello also talked about the various

initiatives taken by the Axis bank

in promoting the agriculture sector.

He said that through its various in-

novative and pro farmer schemes

and programmes, Axis Bank stands

out in the eld of agri lending.

Another speaker

and eminent in-

dustry person,

Dr AK Rajput inhis speech spoke

about poultry

farming and said

that farmers

practicing poul-

try farming along with agriculture

are better off. He said that contract

farming can be a boon to the poultry

industry as in such a practice farm-

ers are free from market uctua-

tions. In his speech he talked about

the model on contract farming fol-

lowed by Sugna Group. Dr Rajput

highlighted the various achieve-

ments and the phenomenal growth

of the Group due to contract farm-

ing. He believes that contract farm-

ing can add to the income of Indian

farmers.

Salil Singhal,in his address

spoke about the

importance of

agro chemicals

for agricultural

p roduct iv i t y .

Agro chemical

is a very critical

activity required for agriculture,

said Mr Singhal. He said that the

agro chemicals sector is caught

between the environmentalists and

agricultural need. Mr Singhal saidthat there is a need to remove the

unnecessary fears among the farm-

ers about agro chemicals. He also

highlighted the lack of a clear Na-

tional Pesticide Policy. He believes

that today, the need of agro chemi-

cals and technology has grown even

more due to the lack of labour.

Policy and state session

The policy and state session

was chaired by Sh Chandrashekar

Sahu, Honble Agriculure Minister,



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Chattisgarh, and included Mr. San-

jeev Chopra, IAS Joint Secretary

Agriculture, GOI and Mr. JS Mishra,

Commisioner KVIC.

Mr. Chandrashe-

kar Sahu talked

about how to

tackle age oldissue of agri-

culture and the

extent environ-

mental changes

impacting agri-

culture. He said we should encour-

age the role of women in Indian

agriculture. There should be promo-

tion of small Agri business and it

will add in achieving food security.

Mr Sanjeev

Chopra empha-

sized that the

fact is after

the success of

green revolution

the agriculture

development isdeclining and al-

location of state Govt. to something

called Agriculture came down. Ag-

riculture is the major contributor in

increasing the countrys GDP. There

should also be policy reformation

as earlier we use to design policy

which help us in enhancement of

surplus, export and we have to re-

design Agriculture insurance and

Kisan credit card. Important thing

to note is that its not technology

which is at fault but the owner-ship of technology which should be

more of interest to farmers/ stake-

holders.

Mr JS Mishra

said that farm-

ers should be in

good situation

for quality of life

to be sustained.A lot of activity

need to be sup-

plemented for

agriculture.

Experts Session

The Experts session was chaired

by Dr PL Gautam, Chairman, pro-

tection of Plant Varieties and Farm-

ers Rights Authority. It included Dr

Swapan K Dutta, DDG CS, ICAR

and Mr. SK Nanda, Secretary of En-

vironment and Forest, Government

of Gujarat.

In his address,

Dr Swapan Dut-

ta talked primar-

ily about science

and technology

in relation to

agriculture. He

said that marketintelligence and

new technologies like Biotechnolo-

gy are keys towards developing the

agriculture sector. In this regard, Dr

Dutta gave the example of coun-

tries like Brazil which has made

tremendous growth in the agricul-

ture due to the use of science and

technology. Science and organiza-

tion are the two main inputs needed

for agriculture, said Dr Dutta. He

also said that the biggest challenge

of Indian agriculture is policy imple-mentation. Dr Dutta believes that

there is no lack of policies in India,

what lacks is the proper implemen-

tation of the policies.

Mr. SK Nanda,

Secretary of En-

vironment and

Forest, Govern-

ment of Gujarat

in his speech

focused on the

need based prag-

matic reform in

Indian agriculture. He said that one

of the areas that need focus for

the farm growth is information and

communication. Like IT, we need

to change agriculture into a user

friendly one, said Mr Nanda. He

believes that, there is a need of mo-

bile connectivity between the agri-



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cultural universities and the farmers.

He also highlighted the need of rural

infrastructure to mitigate the migra-

tion of people from rural to urban

areas. He talked about the concept

of RURBAN model in developing the

agriculture sector. As dened by Mr

Nanda, RURBAN is a mix of Rural

and Urban development. He also

talked about the necessity of Lab

to Land Programmes to improve

the agriculture sector. Another key

area of his speech was the need of

Minimum Support Price to farmers.

If a farmer rediscovers the price he

invests, he gets encouragement to

invest more in agriculture, said Mr

Nanda.

In his speech,

the chairman of

the Experts Ses-sion, Dr Gautam

spoke about the

importance of

information and

technology dis-

semination to

the farmers. Experience of farm-

ers and knowledge of scientists to-

gether can lead to success, said Dr

Gautam. Like most other speakers

he also said that the implementation

of policies in the eld of agriculture

is the key issue to be addressed.He also highlighted the importance

of biodiversity conservation in his

speech. He said that summits like

the Agriculture Leadership Summit

should focus on nding out possible

ways to develop Indian Agriculture.

The international s and the Civil So-

ciety Session

The International and the Civil

Society Session was held under the

chairmanship of former Rajya Sab-

ha MP Dr Sharad Joshi. The session

included eminent persons like: Mr

Yahel Vilan, Deputy Chief of Mis-

sion, Israel; Dr Rita Sharma, mem-

ber secretary, NAC; DR Kaarthikey-

an, former CBI director; Dr V Ranga

Rao, CEO of Annadata, ETV; and Dr

Madhu Purnima Kishwar from Cen-

tre for Study of Developing Societ-

ies. In his speech,

Mr Yahel Vilan

talked about the

excellent bilat-

eral cooperation

of India and Isra-

el in the eld of

agriculture. The

key sector of our

bilateral cooperation is Agriculture,

said the Deputy Chief of Mission, Is-

rael. He praised India for the various

agriculture related growth. He alsotalked about the various similarities

between the two countries includ-

ing the similarities in the agriculture

sector. According to Mr Vilan, prop-

er implementation of policies is of

utmost importance in promoting the

agriculture sector.

Dr Rita Sharma

spoke about the

need for mobi-

lizing a second

green revolution.

She spoke about

various aspects

that can help

bringing a sec-

ond green revolution in the country.

She dened the rst green revolu-

tion as a cornucopia and also a Pan-

doras Box. She said that rst green

revolution led to increased agricul-

tural productivity but it also causeda great deal of environmental prob-

lems like depletion of the water ta-

ble. In her speech, Dr Sharma point-

ed out the need of special policies

for the small and marginal farmers

who were not taken into consider-

ation in the rst green revolution.

There is a need of sustainable in-

tensication of agriculture rather

than intensication of agriculture

to start a second green revolution

in the country, said Dr Sharma.

She talked about the need of poli-cies based on the idea of Save and



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Grow that is intensication along

with conservation.

Former CBI

Director DR

Kaa r t h i keyan

talked in details

about the agrar-

ian crisis in hisspeech. Quoting

P Sainath, Rural

Affairs Editor of

The Hindu, around 2, 70000 farm-

ers have committed suicides in the

last decade. He pointed out the

burning issue of Crop Holiday in

the state of Andhra Pradesh. Hu-

man Dimension should be the focus

while initiating agricultural policies,

he said. Mr Kaarthikeyan said that

lesser and lesser investments have

been made in the sector of agricul-ture. He also talked about the im-

portance of livestock sector in live-

lihood generation. Mr Kaarthikeyan

believes that special schemes and

policies are needed for the small

and landless farmers. He said that

agriculture needs to be turned into

a more attractive occupation so

that more and more youth can be

attracted towards this area.

Dr V Ranga Rao, another speaker

on behalf of the Civil Society Ses-

sion talked about the role of media

in the farm growth. Dr Rao said

that the media

must positively

inuence the

policy makers

for farm growth.

He said that

the farm sec-

tor is undergo-ing worst crisis

today. Because of unsustainable

and unrewarding agriculture, there

has been a crop holiday in AP,

said Dr Rao. He believes that there

is a need of second green revolution

in the country and information and

technology dissemination is must

for it. He also talked about the vari-

ous steps and programmes initiated

by Annadata, ETV for the benet of

farmers. Annadata telecasts vari-

ous agriculture related programmesand encourages the farmers to help

themselves, said Dr Rao. Like

many other speakers, Dr Rao also

said that the biggest challenge of

Indian agriculture is the lack of im-

plementation of the farm policies.

In her ery

speech, Dr

Madhu Purnima

Kishwar spoke

about the mis-

erable condition

of the Indian

farmers. She

expressed her disappointment over

governments failure in improving

the condition of the Indian farm-

ers. She said that the status of ag-

riculture has changed from the best

to worst. She said that it is not a

time to have false optimism about

the agriculture sector but a time tohonestly revise our farm policies.

This is not a time to congratulate

ourselves but a time to seriously re-

vise our agricultural policies, said

Dr Kishwar. She also expressed her

disappointment over media for its

lack of responsibility towards the

agriculture sector. Dr Kishwar said

that surveys show that the time

and space allocated to agriculture

by both print and electronic media

is negligible. She ended her speech

by saying, Our farmers and ven-dors are not scared of the Wallmart

but they are scared of the police.

The session was concluded

with a brief speech by the chairper-

son, Dr Sharad Joshi. He said that

the anti farmer policies are the big-

gest obstacle today. He said that

opposition to new technologies by

many NGOs can be a great obstacle

to farm growth. Dr Joshi thanked

the Agriculture Today team for or-

ganizing the summit and keeping a

civil society session on policy re-

forms for farm growth.

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