Minister Amit Shah has urged that the Agricultural and Rural Development Banks (ARDBs) offer additional long-term loans to the agriculture sector. This involves funding infrastructure and irrigation projects. On Saturday, he stated that cooperative banks should concentrate on providing loans to expand the nation's irrigated land.
According to PTI, Shah stated at a national conference that the minister asked cooperative banks to consider how to manage such small farm fields with a cooperative spirit to overcome the difficulties faced by small farm holdings.
"If we look back and observe the last 90 years' journey of long-term financing through cooperatives and how it has percolated down if you check the facts, it has not grown," Shah continued at the conference.
He emphasized that the nation has the second-highest amount of agricultural land behind the US, 49.4 crore acres. He continued by saying that India could feed the entire world if all of its agriculture were irrigated.
Shah also noted the numerous obstacles to long-term finance and advised that the time has come to work together to overcome them. Additionally, he stated that cooperative banks should not only serve as banks but also concentrate on other cooperative activities like constructing irrigation systems for agriculture.
The Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, in collaboration with the Government of Karnataka, successfully wrapped up a two-day National Conference of Agriculture and Horticulture Ministers of the States on Friday in Bengaluru.
To assist the Central Government in creating a roadmap and effective action plan for the effective implementation of all the schemes in the interest of the farming community, consultations with the State Agriculture and Horticulture Ministers and senior Agriculture officers were held during the conference. The International Year of Millets - 2023, which will be marked the following year, was also discussed at the conference. The States decided to boost their production and area, as well as support the processing, value addition, and marketing of nutritious cereals, working with the Central Government to do so. This was done in consideration of the importance of nutritious cereals.
The uninterrupted relaxation of restrictions on agricultural work and the operation of Kisan Rail, according to Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar, helped the agriculture sector and farmers during the Covid pandemic. This is in contrast to how other sectors fared.
Tomar stressed the need for improved coordination between the State Governments and the Government of India's policies and programs to properly implement them. This involves putting the Digital Agriculture Mission into practice, promoting FPOs, creating a better system for trading agricultural products through e-NAM, and making the best use of the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi and the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund to build infrastructure in rural regions.
