NAGPUR, MARCH 11: In a major policy shift, the State Government has decided to provide incentives to farmers switching over to non-conventional crops from the conventional ones like cotton, jowar, paddy and onion.Addressing a press conference, Agriculture Minister Ranjit Deshmukh announced a string of decisions taken by his ministry to ensure co-ordination between various departments and corporations attached to the Ministry of Agriculture, scheme of incentives to promote non-conventional crops and commercial utilisation of the surplus land with four agricultural universities in the State.Explaining the idea behind the scheme of incentives, the minister said farmers sticking to the conventional cropping pattern and also the State Government procuring the produce, find it difficult to secure remunerative prices to the produce. With ever increasing production and productivity of conventional crops, the problem has assumed a grave proportion. As a way out, the State Government has decided to discourage farmers from sticking to the conventional pattern, he said. The incentives will be available to even those taking to tusser and silk cocoon rearing. Incentives will be available to farmers in 15 districts including Gondia, Bhandara, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli, Amravati and Yavatmal in Vidarbha region.Other decisions include setting up of training centres at tehsil places to provide in-service training to agriculture department employees, construction of agricultural complexes at district places to accommodate offices of departments and corporations attached to the agriculture ministry, steps to make the one-window system more effective, providing information about prevailing market rates of major foodgrains through APMCs and a special programme to promote drip irrigation system.A proposal is under consideration to make commercial use of surplus land with the agricultural universities and utilising money raised through the sale of land for development of universities. The State Government has also planned to start 10 agricultural polytechnics and training institutes, to reserve 33 per cent seats for girls in agricultural schools and colleges and setting up of an agro-tech park with the assistance of MAIDC, an agro-food park with the help of VIA and an info-tech park in collaboration with MIDC. All these parks will come up on PDKV land near Nagpur, he said.
