New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the Mann Ki Baat program yesterday. During this time, he appreciated the farmers of the country. He said that during the Corona crisis, the farmers of the country showed excellent tolerance. The Prime Minister said that if the agricultural sector remains strong, the foundation of a self-sufficient India will remain strong.
He said that in recent times this area has been free from many restrictions and has also tried to be free from many myths. He shared the example of Kanwar Chauhan, a farmer from Haryana who faced great difficulties in marketing his fruits and vegetables outside Mandi, but in 2014, fruits and vegetables were excluded from the APMC Act, benefitting him immensely.
He formed a Farmers Producer Organization and the farmers in his village now cultivate sweet corn and baby corn and supply directly to Azadpur mandi, major retail chains and five star hotels in Delhi, which has greatly increased their income. . The Prime Minister underlined that these farmers have the facility to sell their fruits and vegetables anywhere and to anyone and this is the foundation of their progress. Now this facility has been provided to farmers all over the country for all their produce.
The Prime Minister gave the example of Maharashtra's Farmer Producer Organization - Saswamy Samarth Farm Producer Company Limited, and spoke about the benefits to farmers due to the exclusion of fruits and vegetables from the purview of APMC. He said that farmers in Pune and Mumbai are running weekly markets themselves and selling their produce directly without middlemen.
He also spoke about a group of farmers - the Tamil Nadu Banana Farmer Produce Company - who during lockdown bought hundreds of metric tons of vegetables, fruits and bananas from the surrounding villages and supplied them in Chennai as vegetable combo-kits. He also referred to Lucknow's intention Farmer Producer Group, which, during lockdown, purchased fruits and vegetables directly from farmers' fields, and sold them directly to markets in Lucknow, free from middlemen.
Prime Minister Modi said that agriculture sector will be developed through innovations and application of new technologies. He cited the example of Ismail Bhai, a farmer from Gujarat who did farming despite being discouraged by his family. They cultivated potatoes using drip irrigation techniques - high quality potatoes have now become their hallmark, which they sell directly to big companies without intermediaries and make huge profits.
The Prime Minister also shared the story of Ms. Bijay Shanti from Manipur, who has started a start-up to develop a thread from Kamal's Dandi. The Prime Minister said that his efforts and innovations have created new opportunities for lotus cultivation and textile sector.
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