Organising small and marginal farmers into small groups, establishing good agricultural practices, improving infrastructure facilities for farming sector and making comprehensive insurance policies were among the suggestions made at the World Agriculture Forum (WAF) Congress 2013 which concluded here today.
Farmers can organise themselves into small groups and establish agri-business consortium for ensuring timely availability of credit and other inputs and for improving farm-related activities like marketing, Andhra Pradesh Agriculture Minister Kanna Lakshminarayana said, speaking at the valedictory function of the event.
Other important points that emerged at the four-day event include adopting good agricultural practices like integrated management of water resources, pests, crop diversification, improving infrastructural facilities like transport, cold storage, addressing the problem of climate change, research and development of farm machinery for small farmers, he said.
Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly Speaker N Manohar who was the chief guest, said that the state has always been farmer friendly and implemented programmes and measures for their benefit.
A policy statement, described as the agriculture budget, was announced along with the state budget during this year, he said.
The Assembly has also emphasised on farmers' welfare in its debates and agriculture experts were invited to help in the endeavour, he said.
James Bolger, Chairman of the WAF Advisory Board and former Prime Minister of New Zealand, said that available knowledge and science must be applied to eliminate hunger and under-nourishment of children.
