PM: Must enhance crop productivity

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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed concern over a large section of the population still suffering from poverty and hunger and said more efforts were needed to achieve higher agricultural growth and ensure food security for the people.
“I am happy that the growth rate of our agriculture has increased substantially in the last few years. But we are still far from achieving our goal. We need to work harder so that we can increase the agricultural growth rate to 4 per cent per annum,” the PM said while addressing the nation on the 64th Independence Day.
The agriculture sector posted a negative growth rate of 0.2 per cent in 2009-10 because of severe drought in almost half of the country resulting in a fall in foodgrains output by 16 million tonnes at 218 million tonnes.
The PM stressed on the need to enhance crop productivity for increasing farm production and to ensure food security to the people.
“Our government wants a food safety net in which no citizen of ours would go hungry. This requires enhanced agricultural production which is possible only by increasing productivity,” the PM said.
The UPA government is in the process of enacting the National Food Security Act under which a fixed quantity of foodgrains would be provided every month to families below poverty line (BPL).
Pointing out that the country has not witnessed any big technological breakthrough in agriculture after the Green Revolution, the PM said: “We need technology which would address the needs of dry land agriculture.”
The Prime Minister announced that an institute is being set up in India after the name of renowned scientist Norman Borlaug.
The Borlaug Institute of South Asia would facilitate availability of new and improved seeds and new technology to Indian farmers and also to the other countries of South Asia.
Dr Manmohan Singh hoped the Indian agriculture should be able to deal with new challenges like climate change, falling levels of ground water and deteriorating quality of soil.