New Delhi: The government should come out
with a farm policy aimed at crop diversification and use of
environment-friendly materials in place of chemicals and
pesticides, industry body Assocham said on Friday.
"The suggested policy should prescribe a time period of
three years to yield desired results, and should gradually
move agriculture on to achieve radical changes in it and
especially so, in India's rural economy," the chamber said.
Agricultural management should become the focal point for
moving farming from tradition to a steadily income-generating
activity, and the new policy should also promote corporate
farming, it said.
"Enough incentives be provided to farmers to integrate
them with animal husbandry and poultry and introduce short
term commercial crops... for raising rural farm incomes,"
Assocham President Swati Piramal said.
The chamber further said the investment in agriculture
had gone down to 2.1 per cent from 2.4 per cent of the GDP
between year 2000 and 2007.
The share of private sector in gross investment in
agriculture continues to be above 70 per cent while that of
the public sector has been rising sharply, it said.
Bureau Report
First Published: Friday, November 06, 2009, 18:15