 "Narendra Modi")
This, Modi said, would ensure the scheme, which was cleared by the Union Cabinet a few weeks ago, becomes a success.
Modi was addressing representatives from state governments, agriculture universities and others in Sikkim on Monday.
He also pitched for creating farming-oriented mobile phone apps, online mandis and value addition to farming, while talking about the benefits of the recently-announced crop insurance scheme and the ‘soil health card’.
He said his government was looking to link the Swachh Bharat Mission with agriculture by promoting production of organic fertilisers from compost.
The Centre’s skill development scheme will also encourage educating the youth to act as technicians for soil health.
Referring to Sikkim’s success story in making it the first totally organic state, Modi said other states should also select a district or a block or Taluka, comprising 100-150 villages, strategically (for organic farming) and try it.
“If the experiment succeeds, farmers in other places will follow it on their own. Farmers may not be influenced by any amount of lectures by scientists... For them, seeing is believing,” he added.
The PM also said agriculture should be divided into three parts — first, traditional farming; second, trees; and third, animal husbandry.
As a means of financial security to farmers affected by the vagaries of nature, Modi suggested they should divide their farming activities into three equal parts - regular farming involving crop production, growing of trees for economically-valuable timber, and animal husbandry.
Earlier, representatives of state governments who participated in the three-day long deliberations said farm credit disbursal should be monitored on a regular basis and banks should ensure at least 10 million new farmers are brought under the formal institutional credit system annually so that the remaining 30-40 million farmers out of the ambit of institutional credit get covered.
The formal credit system is largely weak in central, eastern and north-eastern parts of the country.
Modi in his address also urged states to go the organic way as it has great demand worldwide.
Underlining the need for looking at the farming sector in a ‘changed scenario’, he said: “As far as agriculture is concerned, there can be many reasons for despondency as there have been many experiences (in the past)... To infuse new hope is a challenge and will have to take it up.”
On the soil health card scheme, he said farmers have to be motivated for such programmes. He said a network of soil laboratories should come up across the country, and even school labs could be used during summer holiday months for this purpose.
