Need to equip farmers with better farming technology: Narendra Modi

                              

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that the farmer has made a big contribution towards the development of the country.

Addressing the 86th foundation day of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) in New Delhi, PM Modi said that it is very important to ensure that the farmer of the country gets prosperous.

Emphasising on the need to improve the productivity, Modi said that it is important to give advanced farm technology to the farmers.

Stating that technological up-gradation and technological intervention has added to better farm produce, Modi said that the greatest challenge before India is to bring "lab to land" invention to the farmers.

The PM asked agri scientists to work towards increasing crop productivity at fast pace without compromising on quality. 

Modi also stressed upon progressive farming. He added that the agriculture universities should address the concerns of farmers by making a data bank of young educated farmers. 

He also suggested that an agricultural radio station can be opened at the agricultural institutions and young students can be encouraged to do research and do a talk show on the topic. He said that such an initiative will be more credible and popular. 

Rating agency Crisil has said that the country's agriculture growth is likely to remain muted at 1 percent in FY'2015 largely due to strong statistical base-effect.

Monsoons are currently 24 percent below the long period average, which is worse than the deficiency seen in fiscals 2009 or 2012. While 2009 turned out to be a drought year, rains recovered sharply in the latter half of the season in 2012.

This year, too, if rains pick up in the coming weeks, foodgrain output may not be severely impacted. But the high growth of last fiscal will mean the statistical Y-o-Y trend in farm output will be flat - just the way it was in 2012-13, when production recovered but agricultural growth came in at 1.4 percent following up on a 5 percent growth in 2011-12.

After a bumper agricultural growth last year, fiscal 2015 has been tepid. In June, IMD forecast a 33 percent probability of deficient monsoon and 38 percent chance of a sub-normal one.