Providing quality, nutritious food a challenge before world: Niranjan Reddy

Hyderabad: Providing quality and nutritious food to people is a major challenge before the world, said Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy. He emphasised the need for incentivising agriculture to encourage farmers for cultivating crops as per the market demand. He was participating in a national conference on ‘Sustainable Growth of Agriculture for Self-Reliant India’ during […]

Hyderabad: Providing quality and nutritious food to people is a major challenge before the world, said Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy. He emphasised the need for incentivising agriculture to encourage farmers for cultivating crops as per the market demand.

He was participating in a national conference on ‘Sustainable Growth of Agriculture for Self-Reliant India’ during the 42nd annual meeting of CropLife India in New Delhi on Wednesday. Union Minister of State for Agriculture Kailash Choudhary along with Agriculture Ministers from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka participated in the national conference.

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Speaking on the occasion, Niranjan Reddy said though the agriculture was a State subject, the Centre should prepare policies and initiate measures keeping in view of different climatic and geographic conditions in the State. He suggested for implementing crop colonies across the country. “The union government must take up the responsibility of incentivising farming. As the crop procurement and exports are handled by the Central government, it should take measures to promote crop diversification,” he said.

The Minister stated that India being the second largest agrarian country in the world, it was unfortunate that it has to import pulses, oil seeds and other crops worth crores of rupees every year. He wanted the Centre to prioritise agriculture which was the largest employer in the country on the lines of Telangana and create necessary supportive infrastructure as well as provide incentives for strengthening the sector.

“Due to the proactive measures taken by the Telangana government by implementing Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bima, uninterrupted power supply and irrigation water supply among other measures, we have succeeded in retaining farmers to continue cultivation. Further, we were also successful in encouraging the younger generations to take up farming,” he added.