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Journalism of Courage
MUMBAI, JANUARY 10: Union chemicals and fertilisers minister Suresh Prabhu has announced that a cooperative farming concept would be developed in the Konkan region of Maharashtra with the assistance and guidance of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and the union ministry of agriculture.
Prabhu who hails from this region, said that he has already initiated discussions with NDDB and agriculture minister Nitish Kumar to evolve plans for introduction of cooperative farming for benefits of the farmers.
He said that farmers in this region are suffering from low productivity of their cash crops like cashew, coconut and bamboo and efforts should be made to enhance the productivity and earnings of the farmers through innovative financing and technology-aid, particularly from the leading agro-related industries in the region.
Prabhu was speaking to the farmers at a training centre developed by the public sector Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertiliser Limited (RCF) near its plant at Thal in Alibag district of Maharashtra.
The farmers training centre was constructed by RCF with an objective to train the farmers in adoption of farm technology and hybrid seeds. This would not only enhance the skill of farmers to increase production of crops but also enhance their earnings.
Initially, a batch of 35 farmers would be trained by experts at the centre which would later be extended to train 1,200 farmers from the region. Later, these farmers would be asked to train their fellow farmers in their respective villages and if needed, all the infrastructure help would be provided by RCF to spread the training programme in all the villages of the region.
Prabhu who personally visited social infrastructure (hospitals) and factories of three leading public sectors -IPCL, HOC and RCF – in the picturesque Konkan region yesterday, said that there was a need to increase the fertiliser production in all varieties and become self-sufficient in fertilisers in order to meet the growing demand from the farming sector.The centre has plans to double the foodgrains production from the current 200 million tonnes to 400 million tonnes in the next eight years and this calls for greater technological and raw materials input.
At present, India is self-sufficient to the extent of 96 per cent in indigenous production of fertilisers and the import is only 4 per cent. Prabhu said that besides covering up the import requirement, the production of fertilisers should be increased to meet the agriculture growth pattern in future.
In this context, the union minister hinted that the union cabinet would soon approve the expansion proposal of RCF to set up an additional 7.8 lakh tonne capacity urea plant at Thal. The existing Thal plant of RCF is having a capacity of 16 lakh tonnes. He also informed that Kribco at Hajira in Gujarat would also be granted to set up additional capacity of fertiliser production along with RCF.
