Vice President Venkaiah Naidu today said that steps have been taken to improve soil fertility on a sustainable basis through the soil health card scheme, provide improved access to irrigation and enhanced water efficiency through Pradhan MantriKrishiSinchaiYojana (PMKSY), support organic farming through ParamparagatKrishiVikasYojana (PKVY) and support creation of a unified national agriculture market to boost the income of farmers. He was speaking at the Agricultural University herein Hyderabad in a seminar. Further, to mitigate risk in the agriculture sector, “Pradhan MantriFasalBimaYojana (PMFBY) has been launched for implementation from Kharif 2016 he said.
Digital Technology applications in agriculture have emerged as an important area. The use of Information Technology, Space Technology, Geo-Informatics, Internet of Things (IoT), Block Chain Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics and their first-mile connectivity to farmers is vital for enhancing farm incomes.The Hon’ble Prime Minister has set a target before the country to double farmers’ income by 2022 he said. To achieve this target, the government has been focusing on irrigation with schemes like “Per Drop More Crop”, provision of quality seeds and nutrients based on soil health, setting up warehouses and cold chains to prevent post-harvest crop losses, promoting value addition through food processing, creating a National Farm Market, removing distortions and e-platform across 585 stations he stated.
Increasing investments in agricultural R&D and rolling out efficient institutional reforms are vital to tackle the emerging challenges in agriculture, including food and nutrition security both at national and regional levels. I have been always emphasizing upon the need for India to have its own home-grown food security as the country cannot depend on imported food security Venkaiah stated.
