33% Punjab land to come under commercial farming by '16

The Punjab government has plans to bring one-third of the total agricultural land of the state under commercial and organic farming in the next ten years, to enhance the income of farmers of the state.

"In the next ten years, we would like to allocate 33 per cent of our total farm land to commercial farming with the active participation of big corporate and state-owned firms," Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh said after addressing a labour rally in Khanna yesterday.

Punjab has a total of about 105 lakh acres of agricultural land in the state. "On about 25 per cent of the total land, we would like to encourage new commercial and corporate farming projects by big companies such as Reliance and Bharti as well as state organisations like Punjab Agro.

Organic farming is another area which needs to be promoted in the state. We have plans to bring at least 10 per cent of the land under organic farming," the chief minister said.

Elaborating on Reliance Industries Ltd's proposed investment in Punjab, Singh said Reliance would be investing about Rs 3,500 crore in the first phase on the farm-to-fork project. It would also set up a total of 302 hub and sub-hubs across the state and each hub would have several dimensions including primary health, agriculture, education, extension, dairy, veterinary services and entertainment, he said.