Minister for institutionalising pulse, oilseed cultivation

Our Economic Bureau

New Delhi, April 26 : UNION minister for rural development M Venkaiah Naidu urged the consultative group on land and watercare (CLAW) to institutionalise cultivation of pulses and oilseeds in villages where the water availability is low.

The minister who was delivering his inaugural address at the launch of the national landcare movement (LCM) in Capital on Thursday stressed the importance of setting up of village seed banks, water banks and foodgrain banks. He said that agriculture in the new century will be knowledge intensive and will be based on eco-technologies which are not only environment friendly ad economically viable but are also socially equitable both in gender and economic terms.

The LCM has been set up by the Chennai-based MS Swaminathan Research Foundation with financial assistance from the Mumbai-based Sir Dorabji Tata Trust. The LCM constituted the CLAW to give direction to its programmes.

Mr Naidu expressed the hope that the Saarc countries will take advantage of the strategies being finalised by CLAW. He said among other countries, Australia has taken a lead among other countries in management of land and water resources and India is now endeavouring to pursue for the first time among the countries in this region.

He said that unless we make rapid progress in integrating the community and official functionaries of scientific ad government institutions, we will not be able to harness the fruits of both traditional wisdom and frontiers science for building a sustainable food security system in the country during the 21 century.
He said that community centred food and water security system will conserve and enhance natural resources, particularly land, water and biodiversity.

It will also foster sustainable skilled on-farm and off-farm employment, enhancement of farm productivity, post-harvest technology and agro-processing.