New agri policy to focus on increasing farmers' income

Ruchika M Khanna

Advertisement

Chandigarh, March 23

The upcoming Agriculture Policy will focus on improving the income of farmers by asking them to diversify to allied agriculture activities and make a shift from rice and wheat monoculture.

With the state’s groundwater table depleting rapidly, the other major focus of the policy is to ask farmers to replace paddy with basmati, short duration variety – PR 126, soybean and maize. Wheat can be replaced by mustard in many parts of the state, and traditional wheat varieties could be replaced by durum wheat, and other imported wheat varieties that help in making biscuits, pastas and noodles.

As the expert group, headed by Punjab State Farmers and Farm Workers Commission Chairperson Sukhpal Singh, met today to give final shape to the policy, there was reportedly a unanimity amongst the group that the way forward would be to encourage the agriculture allied activities of dairying, pisciculture and poultry amongst farmers to supplement their income.

Dr Gurdev Singh Khush (agronomist and rice breeder) and Dr Bikram Singh Gill (expert on wheat) participated in the meeting and gave their inputs in framing the new policy for the state based on promoting environmentally sensitive crops.

It may be mentioned that the average agriculture household debt in the state is Rs 2 lakh, as against a national average of over Rs 74,000, according to Situation Assessment Survey of Agriculture Households. Between 2012 and February 2023, as many as 1,403 farmers in the state have died by suicide and 403 farm labourers have died by suicide. Of these, families of 939 such farmers and farm labourers have received monetary compensation from the state government (Rs 3 lakh per family).

The new policy is expected to be released in June.