National policy for farmers on 60th Independence day
National policy for farmers on 60th Independence day
By PTI
Coimbatore: A National Policy for Farmers is likely to be in place on 15 August, the 60th Independence day of India, eminent agriculture scientist, Prof MS Swaminathan said today.
Since there was no exclusive policy for farmers, the new national policy would find ways and means to raise their income, Swaminathan told reporters here.
Saying that the union agriculture minister, Sharad Pawar had already discussed the issue with the officials, based on his (Swaminathan’s) draft policy, which envisaged to look after the income of farmers, he said this would be placed before the National Development Council for dicussion among by Chief Ministers, as agriculture is a state subject.
The Chief Ministers, after discussion would put it before the cabinet and the new policy was expected to be in place on 15 August, he said.
When there is a pay commission and other mechanism to decide the income of employees, why should not there be a policy for farmers, 70 per cent of the total population of India, he asked.
A process is on to set up a National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority, to analyse the risk and assess the benefits, which would be transparent, he said.
Similarly, a National Association of Genome Entrepreneurs would be formed on 14 April here, which would help identify genes controlling fibre quality and other important traits.
The association would help in promoting self-employment in the field of genomic technologies, he said.
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