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Bhubaneswar, July 1: A seminar on ‘Doubling farm Income in Orissa by 2022’ was organised by Ananya at Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) here Friday.
About 800 experts, scientists, panellists, policy-makers, progressive farmers and students attended the seminar. They discussed measures that need to be taken to improve farm income of the state.
Chief speaker at the event Dr Trilochan Mohapatra, the secretary of DARE and director-general of ICAR, said the state needs to increase productivity to double income. “Our aim should be to double income through farming by 2022. We need to increase production. But productivity won’t increase by just increasing the area under cultivation. Orissa has facilities and new techniques to help increase agriculture production. But there is no actual increase in production. We, therefore, need to focus on this sector urgently.”
The ICAR DG went on to list the focus areas for the state. “We need to focus on three factors: increasing production, adding value to agricultural produce and reducing cost of cultivation,” he said, and added: “Orissa is one of the best producers of rice with 4 million hectares under rice. Farmers must try other farming techniques to increase income and add value. Productivity, sustainability and profit should be our major concerns.”
Further, Trilochan suggested that farmers should be involved in awareness programmes and be linked to proper markets. “More research is required to increase production.
“Farmers are very important for this to happen and so we need to organise awareness programmes about different farming patterns at the district level regularly. Farmers should be given better price for their produce and for this they should be linked to better market.”
Dhiren Kumar, the additional secretary of agriculture and farmers’ empowerment, Surendranath Pasupalak, VC of OUAT and Bishnupada Sethy, secretary of fisheries and animal resource development were among the speakers at the event.
