INDIA TO EXPORT ORGANIC FARM PRODUCES IN THREE YEARS – RAJNATH
SINGH
Agriculture Minister Shri Rajnath Singh said
that the government is preparing a master plan to export Rs. 300
crore worth organic farming produces in another three years of
time. The Minister was delivering the inaugural address at Prakriti
– 2003, a three-day national level exhibition-cum-conference,
here today. He said that his ministry had set a target to achieve
the goal. Separation of human kind and nature in developmental
activities has been posing threat, he said. The usage of chemical
fertilizers to achieve more of food grain production resulted
degradation in the soil and food quality, he observed. To curtail
the negative effects of chemical pollution impact on food now
the worldwide thinking is focused on the organic farming he added.
Shri Rajnath Singh called for the protection of indigenous technology
in the country. He said that the country has vast varieties of
agricultural methods that have a great traditional and cultural
values simultaneously. He emphasized the conference that the traditional
methods have proven the same results of yields in tests that of
chemical fertilizers.
Shri Rajnath Singh has said that his ministry
is going to implement new Farmer Income Insurance Scheme as a
pilot project in selected districts during the Rabi season. He
believed that the new scheme would benefit even the small farmer
to get the Minimum Supporting Prices to their produces. Under
the new scheme more than 50 per cent farmers would be covered
for guaranteed MSP by the union government he said.
The Minister also said that the government has
identified nearly 3000 varieties of medicinal plants for protection
and research is going on some varieties to find out more medicinal
values in them. Bio-diesel is emerging as an effective alternative
to the existed pollution generating energies he said.
Shri Hukum Deo Narayan Yadav, Minister of State
for Agriculture, said that Indian farmer and agriculture has a
tradition of conserving the nature and it should be protected.
Natural and organic way of production of food grains is only solution
for many health disorders faced by the present society, he said.
The Minister is for a law, which would relate the country’s various
traditional and cultural practices to the science.
Earlier Shri Rajnath Singh inaugurated an exhibition
of Khadi Gramodyog and Village produces, Herbal and Ayurved medicines
and indigenously developed farm tools. Shri Chhattarpal Singh,
Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers, presided over
the conference. Viswa Ayurved Parishad organizes the conference
in collaboration with Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI),
a department of Agriculture Ministry.
