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Journalism of Courage
President Pratibha Patil on Friday called for the need to develop acceptable partnership arrangements between farmers and corporates to tide over economic limitations of small landholdings of farmers in the country to sustain agriculture growth in the future.
The economic limitation of small-sized land operations is the main challenge of the 21st century for sustained increase in production. This calls for structural and organisational changes in managing the farm sector in India. I have been calling for the development of some basic models to bring farmers into partnership arrangements with the corporate world, Patil said,addressing a conference on rural prosperity through better agriculture in the capital.
She suggested that the models should be evolved in such a fashion that farmers are not alienated from their landholding rights. Voluntary formation,autonomous functioning and democratic control should be the essential principles of such models. It should be a transparent process,where farmers see such arrangements as a measure to empower them and are confident about retaining the ownership of their land, she said.
She also highlighted the need to usher in the second green revolution to meet food security challenges.
Patil,who recently visited Syria,singled out the Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas at Aleppo (Syria) and asked the Indian agricultural scientists to collaborate with this centre to evolve new ways to boost dryland farming.
