Contribution of farmers and workers must in development of nation: Raghubar Das

NEW DELHI: Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das said that in the development of the nation the contribution of the villages poor farmers and workers is a must for the development of state and nation.nnSpeaking at the Global Agriculture and Food Summit-2018 at the Khelgaon here (organized by Jharkhand government and FICCI as event partner) Das said agriculture was the soul of the nation and base of the culture and traditions.nnHe said that in fact all our festivals are also directly and indirectly related to the agriculture.nnDas said that in Jharkhand 60-70 per cent population was agriculture.nnHe said that the state government has sanctioned sufficient funds for the development of agriculture and allied activities and framed a separate food processing policy which is focused on bottling and packaging as food processing was an important link between the farmers and urban customers.nnRaghubar Das said that during the function online foundation has been laid for 50 food processing companies which will create employment opportunities for the youth and even the farmers would get right cost of their products.nnMr Das said that in the year 2013-14 the agriculture growth rate was minus 4.5 per cent which has turned into a growth of 14 percent which was mainly due to the hard work of the farmers of the state.nnDas said that the picture of the villages did not change in the last 67 years and it was only when Prime Minister Narendra Modi that steps were taken to improve the condition of the farmers and a target was set to double their incomes.nnHe said that Jharkhand was getting the benefit of double engine. He suggested that farmers should try to earn one third of income should come from agriculture another one third from animal husbandry and another one third from horticulture floriculture and solar farming.nnHe said that farmers should do solar farming on barren land and the same would be procured by the state government through grid at Re 3 per unit.nnHe said that it is priority for the state government to ensure that the farmers are not looted by the middlemen.nnHe said that 28 lakh farmers in the state would be given mobile phones from 2019-21 while in 2019 the premium of crop insurance would be paid by state government like what was done in the year 2018. To the farmers he said that those who would be paying their loans within one year from them zero percent interest would be taken.nnThe Chief Minister said power would reach in all homes by 2018 and by May 2019 separate feeders would be set for agriculture so that farmers can get power for six hours for agriculture works while separate feeders would be provided for house hold and industrial usages.nnDas said by August 2019 power would be available in the rural areas 24 x 7. He said that since the people were living in the era of globalisation therefore the farmers should use modern technology and asked the farmers to focus on dairy production to bring White revolution by 2022 in the state and said that every year 100 farmers would be sent abroad.nnHe also asked the farmers to focus on organic farming as all these steps would lead to doubling the income of the farmers by 2022.