Rabi harvest will cover monsoon gap: Pawar

Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar today said foodgrain production in the country would exceed 200 million tonnes.

He said the kharif crop shortfall would be met by the rabi harvest, which was likely to be good this year, given the late monsoon.

The minister said about 13 million tonnes of sugar would be produced in the current year. He added that there was a carry forward of 8 million tonnes from last the fiscal. Hence the sugar yield in the current year of 21 million tonnes was enough to meet the domestic demand of about 17.5 million tons.

Speaking at the Economic Editors' Conference, Pawar also said the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government considered agriculture a thrust area and that productivity, agro-processing, agro-marketing within India and outside was on the priority list of the government.

He said the government was looking at strengthening the Forward Markets Commission, based on a study by the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, and the report of the inter-ministerial taskforce on the convergence of commodity and securities derivatives markets.

Talking of the ministry's proposal to encourage state governments to take up the procurement of foodgrains under the decentralised procurement scheme, he said this would ensure remunerative prices to local farmers and also reduce the dependence on the Food Corporation of India.

He recounted the schemes, such as the reimbursement of transportation costs for paddy from the procurement centre to the storage point and from the storage point to rice mills. Increasing the milling rate for parboiled paddy from Rs 15 a quintal to Rs 20 a quintal and other schemes.

The Seeds Act 1966 was under revision, Pawar said. In the proposed Seeds Bill, 2004, a more " liberalised climate for investment by the private sector" would be brought about, according to him.

Farmers rights would be strengthened under the Bill and it would attempt to accredit private organisations to conduct agronomic trials and also have provisions for compulsory registration of varieties, Pawar said. He also said that the new Bill would allow accreditation of private seed testing laboratories.

Outlining the other initiatives taken by his ministry, Pawar talked of the agri-business model to be framed in cooperation with the banking industry, implementing a central sector scheme for construction of rural godowns, the government's policies to encourage animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries, genetic upgradation of livestock, developing horticulture in the Hindi belt and the Northeast and strengthening of the targeted public distribution system.