The Vice President of India, M. Venkaiah Naidu has called for a renewed focus on agribusiness, value addition and diversification of agriculture to make farming much more sustainable, profitable and rewarding. He was addressing the gathering at the Convocation of Vaikunth Mehta National Institute for Cooperative Management (VAMNICOM), a premier cooperative management institute focusing on Agri-Business Management in Pune, Maharashtra today. He also awarded medals to 3 achievers and presented Post Graduate Diplomas to 51 graduating students.The Vice President applauded the vision of inclusive and sustainable growth that VAMNICOM, an institution named after Vaikunth Bhai Mehta the Minister of Finance and Cooperation of the then Bombay State and the first Chairman of Khadi and Village Industries Commission. He termed the contributions of Shri Mehta as ‘foundational to cooperative sector in India’.Shri Naidu opined that Cooperative societies that are built on values that encourage cooperation, empowerment, and solidarity, rather than just profits, play a crucial role in strengthening rural economy and in ensuring socio-economic development for inclusive growth and sustainable development. He said that the cooperative sector has a big role to play in bridging the urban-rural divide and creating opportunities for income generation at grass-roots level.The Vice President said that Cooperatives can help the small and marginal farmers who are in need of support in the form of inputs, harvesting, storage facilities, distribution channels and a network of the market information system. ‘They can help in mitigating rural distress by providing support facilities for farmers to ensure sustainability’, he added.Shri Naidu spoke about the need to restructure our agricultural markets by removing middlemen and intermediaries, thereby helping farmers to directly interact with the consumers. He cited the national agricultural market, e-Nam as initiative that would greatly help farmers in this endeavour and said that e-Nam.
Pin pointing the issues faced by agriculture sector such as the rising cost of inputs, depleting water resources, lack of an organized market mechanism and the vagaries caused by climate change, the Vice President said that there is a need to make agriculture more profitable and ecologically sustainable.Shri Naidu said that there was a need to introduce structural changes in the agriculture sector on a priority basis to ease agrarian distress. ‘The foremost need in the country is to double the income of the farmers by making agriculture resilient, sustainable and profitable’, he added.The Vice President said that infrastructure development is one of the key factors to improve the agriculture sector and empower the farmers. ‘Improving rural road connectivity, setting up more godowns, cold storage facilities, ensuring assured water and electricity supply are some of the key measures which could be implemented’, he suggested. Rural infrastructure can help in value addition by improving the ease of activities such as paddy milling, oil seed crushing and processing fruits.Shri Naidu spoke about the importance of providing timely, affordable credit to farmers in addition to providing a much more attractive crop insurance scheme. He stated unequivocally that populist measures such as loan waiver and providing free power supply would not help the farmers in the long run and are not permanent solutions. He opined that the farmer does not need freebies but proper marketing conditions to sell his produce. ‘There is also a need to remove restrictions on the movement of Agri-produce and free export should be allowed’, he added.The Vice President also said that our farmers should be educated on the need to diversify crops and take up allied farm activities and encouraged to take up horticulture and the cultivation of cereals and pulses.Shri Naidu suggested that the extension officials should be made to spend more time with the farmers. He added that visiting fields and staying with the families of agriculturists should be mandatory for students of agriculture to help them understand first-hand the problems faced by farmers.The Governor of Maharashtra, Shri C. Vidyasagar Rao, the Secretary, Dept. of Agriculture Cooperation & Farmers Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Shri Sanjay Agarwal, the Addl. Secretary, Dept. of Agriculture Cooperation & Farmers Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Ms. Vasudha Mishra, the Director, Vaikunth Mehta National Institute of Cooperative Management, Dr. K.K. Tripathy and others were present on the occasion.