The government on Friday approved a national policy for farmers with a view to substantially improve the livelihood of peasants. The policy is largely based on a 35-page draft of the National Commission on Farmers headed by MS Swaminathan Tabling a statement in the Lok Sabha, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said the policy also aimed at improving their productivity and profitability and providing an appropriate price policy and risk management measures.
He hoped that the new policy would ?help in rejuvenating our farm sector and bringing lasting improvement in the economic condition of the farmers?.
Pawar said the draft policy circulated among central ministries and departments and state governments had evoked good response and a number of suggestions had been incorporated in the final policy.
The policy aimed at improving the economic viability of farmers in addition to enhancing productivity, profitability and other support services including land and water, he said.
The department of agriculture and cooperation would constitute an inter-ministerial committee for preparing a suitable plan of action for the purpose for implementation of the new policy, the minister said.
The National Commission on Farmers in its series of report had dealt with methods to enhance productivity, profitability and sustainability of the major farming systems in different agro-climatic regions.
It had also suggested measures to attract and retain educated youth in farming and to work out a comprehensive medium term strategy for food and nutrition security.