Rural delight: New state wing to push for more farm earnings

Shilpa P | NT

Mysuru: The independent “directorate of secondary agriculture” which was established in Karnataka recently, is expected to be a boon to farmers amid the Covid gloom. This is because there has been a significant increase in production and productivity of crops in the past 20 years, but the income of farmers has not grown proportionately. Not only this, the vagaries of weather have been impacting agriculture and farm income considerably. The directorate is expected to optimize farm income by utilizing resources and potential available in the farm sector in an integrated manner.

The directorate was formed based on the recommendations of the “committee on doubling of farmer’s income” of the Union ministry of Agriculture headed by Dr Ashok Dalwai. Karnataka is the first state to have such a directorate in the country which will help enhance farmers’ income through additional sources.

The Government of India had given a call for doubling of farmer’s income and had set a deadline of 2022-23. Both the Central government as well as the Government of Karnataka took measures and drew up an action plan to achieve this target. The state action plan focused on popularizing integrated farming in each agro climatic zone by providing better markets and market intelligence as a means to achieve the goal.

Secondary agriculture utilizes the primary product and by products of agriculture and other biological resources available locally in the rural and agrarian neighbourhood as raw material, to come up with food and non food bioresource based products for human and industrial use. It utilises locally available skills or a high level of rural manpower to operate/manage/maintain the production of goods and services. It promotes farm/cottage and village level rural industries by utilizing low capital and technology.

This directorate has a role to compile data and assess the quantum of various crop produce (primary and by products) available from farm, livestock, fisheries and agriculture sub sectors. It will map different schemes and projects implemented in various departments and agencies of both the government of India and Karnataka. It will even identify marketing options and alternate avenues and link the secondary agricultural produce to different marketing outlets. It will develop standards, set up quality control facilities, obtain GI tags and others that will help in better marketing.

The directorate now has six members including directors of Agriculture, Sugar, Khadi and Village industries, a professor of Agriculture economics, two progressive farmers, two farmer producer organisation representatives reputed at the national and international level. It also has five technical officers including joint directors of Animal husbandry, horticulture, fisheries, agriculture marketing and a chief conservator of forests.

A state level steering committee has been formed with 17 members. The additional chief secretary and development commissioner i chairperson and director of secondary agriculture is member secretary of the committee. They have also come up with a secondary agriculture action plan, and district level implementation committee for secondary agriculture.