Knowledge Gaps Among Farmers and Lack of Basic Infrastructure To Be Addressed in Agriculture Sector

The Department of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare, Government of India in association with Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry organized a conference on 'Scope of Public Private Partnership in Agriculture’ in New Delhi today.

Shri, Manoj Ahuja, Secretary, Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Govt. of India delivered the Keynote address on Government’s expectations from Industry, focussing on incorporation of the private sector expectation in the formulation of architectural framework for sector development, shared understanding, knowledge & resources for overall development.

In her address Smt N. Vijayalakshmi, JS (Marketing) laid emphasis on strengthening the four I’s namely Inputs, Infrastructure, Investments and Institutions for developing a conducive ecosystem for PPP projects in Agriculture.

Shri Samuel Praveen Kumar, Joint Secretary (Extension, AIF and I&PS), Dept. of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare mentioned about de-risking of agriculture and stressed the need for developing scalable, viable and replicable business models while leveraging the strengths of public and private sectors to have a “win-win” situation.

Shri Pravesh Sharma, Chairman, FICCI Task Force on FPOs, in his address referred to the need for developing synergy between government and private players for a focused approach for investments towards Technology, Capital and Market Linkage.

Several Industry experts highlighted the various gaps such as ‘Knowledge gaps to farmers, lack of basic infrastructure, quality of Inputs etc as the major areas of concern. Some of them also highlighted the issue of Ministries/Departments and stakeholders working in silos.

The session on States perspective on PPP in Agriculture was chaired by Shri Samuel Praveen Kumar and moderated by Shri Hemendra Mathur, Chairman, FICCI Task Force on Start-ups.

States pointed out issues like need for Farm gate Infrastructure for Grading, Sorting and primary processing of produce to reduce Post harvest losses, logistic services to work in sync with the producers, Infrastructure to meet export requirements, Open network to collect data directly for the farmers & Knowledge distribution.

The consultation was attended by more than 100 participants comprising of diverse stakeholders including state government representatives, Agritech start-ups, Private sector players, FPO members, Agri industry experts & Investors.