Agriculture sector faces issues in technology, policy reforms: NITI Aayog member

“The Commission has included reform in the agriculture sector among the top 5 areas for which next year states will be provided with incentives,” said Prof Chand.

Prof Ramesh Chand, Member, NITI Aayog, today said that the Indian agriculture sector faces issues in customized technology and implementation of the policy reforms at ground level, especially at the state level.

Speaking at ‘Release of India Commodity Year Book 2020 & Discussion on Union Budget Announcements for Agriculture Sector’, Prof Chand said, “Technology is the prime mover and India is facing serious problems both in terms of technology and policy reforms.” He further added that at the state level various laws like the Model APLM Act, Model Agricultural Land Leasing Act, and contract farming need to be further pushed.

He further said that the states should be encouraged to play an active role in the overall growth of the agriculture sector and emphasized the need for the private sector to come forward.

“We need to give the right role to the right people and institutions. Market and the private people are the right people to pay competitive prices to farmers and we should remove hurdles which come in the way of the market,” said Prof Chand.

He said that the private sector should play its due role and the market should play its due role in the agriculture sector. “Most of the problems of the agriculture sector are not inherent to agriculture in India but due to the reason of not changing the regulations which need to change from time to time,” said Prof Chand. 

He said that for the first time the 15th Finance Commission has included a provision to give performance-linked grants to states to undertake some agricultural reform. “The Commission has included reform in the agriculture sector among the top 5 areas for which next year states will be provided with incentives,” said Prof Chand.

He added that the agriculture sector is witnessing the growth but with an increase in the cost of production and it is one of the reasons why we are losing on export competitiveness. “When you increase the yield average cost of production increases and when this increase, obviously farmers will start asking for higher and higher prices. This factor has started affecting the Indian agriculture sector,” Prof Chand said.

Mr. TR Kesavan, Chairman, FICCI National Agriculture Committee & Group President, TAFE Ltd said that in order to meet the requirements of increasing population, we need to produce more and reduce the wastage. “If we can save what we have and the need to produce higher will also start coming down.”

Mr. Siraj Chaudhry, Co-Chair, FICCI National Agriculture Committee and MD & CEO, NCML said that in India the problems are different in different parts of the country and the solutions cannot be one or few changes. “The problem of Every region needs to be addressed differently,” said Mr. Chaudhry.

During the event, ‘India Commodity Year Book 2020’ was also released by the dignitaries.

Mr. Sanjeev Kumar Chadha, MD, NAFED; Mr. Sanjay Kaul, Chairman, NCML, also shared their perspective on the issue.