Newmai News Network Imphal | April 18 Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh has stated that the State Government has begun its works on developing strategies to double farmers’ income by 2022. He was speaking at the valedictory function of the “One-day State Level Workshop on Biodiversity and Sustainable Agriculture for Doubling of Farmers’ Income” at City Convention Centre, Palace Compound, Imphal East today. Biren said that doubling the farmers’ income would be possible only if the State can best utilize the vast untapped potentials of resources present in major farming systems. “We have large untapped area in the hilly regions,” he said while pointing to the need for introducing appropriate technology for these areas to increase productivity and making the farming system competitive and sustainable. “We need to promote farming systems based on high value agriculture like horticulture and animal husbandry. Not only this, we need to adopt successful three-dimensional cropping as well as sustainable farming system involving crop -livestock-pisciculture integration,” he added. He also mentioned about the seven-point strategy of Prime Minister’s Office/Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India – (a) Big focus on irrigation with large budgets, with the aim of “per drop, more crop”; (b) Provision of assured quality seeds (subsidized), planting and nutrient based on soil health of each field; (c) Large investment in warehousing and cold chains to prevent post-harvest crop losses; (d) Promotion of value addition through food processing; (e) Creation of national farm market, removing distortions and e-platform across 585 stations; (f) Introduction of new crop insurance scheme to mitigate risk at affordable cost; and (g) Promotion of ancillary activities like poultry, beekeeping and fisheries. Biren further said that the chunk of the population, that is nearly 80 per cent of Manipur which has 90 per cent of the land area in the hills and 10 per cent in the valley practise farming as their main occupation. On the other hand, the State does not have big industries unlike other advanced States of the country, he pointed out and added that the source of income of the farmers are mainly from the agriculture and allied activities. “We are extremely grateful to our farmers for being the backbone of the State’s food production. But we need to think beyond food production and give back to our farmers a sense of income security. Keeping these views in consideration the Government of India instructed the policymakers of all the States to double the income of the farmers by 2022,” he added. The Chief Minister further said that though the State is bestowed with good rainfall, yet lack of water conservation measures make Manipur want of water during the winter season. Taking this into consideration, the State Government has initiated to construct as many as possible water body structures in different parts of the State, wherever possible. With the completion of these projects farmers will get the required water for cultivation of Rabi/winter crops, he claimed. He also expressed hope that the recommendation from the workshop will be helpful to the Government to make policies and programmes for conservation of the existing biodiversities and to make our agriculture sustainable for the future of the State and farmer in general. The workshop was jointly organised by Government of Manipur and Central Agricultural University, Imphal.
