Tomar says incomes of lakhs of farmers doubled in 8 years; releases success stories of 75k farmers
NEW DELHI: Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Saturday said incomes of lakhs of farmers have doubled in the last eight years with all-round efforts made by the governments at the Centre and states, scientists and the farming community.
Tomar also released an e-book prepared by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), documenting the success stories of 75,000 such farmers whose incomes have doubled or more than doubled in the last eight years.
Among these farmers, the ICAR said that the overall increase in income ranged from 125.44 per cent to 271.69 per cent, majorly through horticulture and field crops in most states.
In 2016, the government had set an ambitious target to double the farmers’ income by 2022.
While addressing the 94th foundation day of the ICAR here, Tomar said there are 14 crore farmers in the country, of which 85 per cent are small and marginal.
“In the last eight years, there has been an all-round effort to promote and strengthen the agriculture sector. Not only the incomes of lakhs of farmers have doubled, earnings of many farmers have more than doubled,” the minister said.
Out of these lakhs of farmers, Tomar said the ICAR had last year decided to identify 75,000 such farmers and document their success stories as part of the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav to celebrate 75 years of India’s independence.
He complimented the ICAR and Krishi Vigyan Kendra’s for successfully taking up this exercise.
The efforts made by the Centre, states, hard work of farmers, good policies of governments and research of scientists have been documented in this e-book of 75,000 successful farmers from across the country, Tomar said, adding that these success stories would also encourage other farmers.
According to a statement by the ICAR, the documentation of 75,000 successful farmers has been done, keeping 2016-17 as the benchmark year and 2020-21 as the impact year.
The ICAR shared the summary of these success stories, stating that an “increase in income was evident across all the sectors of agriculture including field crops, horticulture, livestock, fisheries and farm/non-farm enterprises.”
The overall increase in income ranged from 125.44 per cent in Ladakh to 271.69 per cent in Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
Farmers of Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Puducherry recorded more than 200 per cent increase in income. Most of other states recorded an overall increase in income in the range of 150-200 per cent.
ICAR said that horticulture had the dominant share in total income in 14 states — J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Jharkhand, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.
Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Goa are the top three states with a share of more than 60 per cent in total income, it added.
“Field crops, although the share in total income is declining from 2016-17 to 2020-21, it still remained as the dominant source of income in 11 States like Punjab, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry and Telangana.
“Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Haryana are the top three states in this category,” it said.
The ICAR said that livestock continued to be a major source of total income in the states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland during 2016-17 as well as 2020-21.
In terms of additional income generated during this period, horticulture was the major factor in 17 states.
“The percentage share in additional income from horticulture was as high as 67.72 per cent in Himachal Pradesh, followed by 61.11 per cent in Ladakh, 60.15 per cent in Delhi, 59.15 per cent in Kerala, 58.06 per cent in Karnataka, 57.33 per cent in Goa and 55.89 per cent in Gujarat,” the ICAR said.
Field crops have been a major source of additional income for farmers in Punjab (30.13 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (36.92 per cent), Haryana (39.35 per cent), Bihar (40.39 per cent), Rajasthan (42.06 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (48.46 per cent) and Chhattisgarh (49.01 per cent), it added.
“The result reiterates the fact that doubling farmers’ income is possible across agricultural sectors, across the nation and across the land classes.
“Science and technology-driven increase in income is a reality and could be pursued nationwide with necessary back-up from administrative and policy support,” the ICAR concluded. (PTI)
