TN Wants Roll Back Of Fertilizer Price Hike

Chennai: Requesting the Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shivraj Singh Chouhan to roll back the price rise of Potash, Ammonium Sulphate and Complex fertilizers in the interest of farmers, who have been protesting against it In Tamil Nadu, State Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, R Vinoth said his government was fully committed to introducing various agriculture reforms for the welfare of farmers and ensure that the agricultural sector flourishes.

Speaking at the National Conference on Agriculture for Kharif campaign in New Delhi, Vinoth said Tamil Nadu was an agrarian state with more than 40 percent of the people depending on agriculture and that the new Chief Minister, C Joseph Vijay had promised a lot of reforms to the farmers to make them economically strong.

Tamil Nadu was endowed with rich natural resources and supported diverse cropping systems including Paddy, Pulses, Oilseeds, Cotton, Sugarcane, Vegetables, Flowers, Fruits, Plantation crops, Spices and Medicinal plants but paddy was the staple crop and occupying 35 percent of the total cropped area with more than 20 lakh farmers cultivating paddy.

So the Union Government decision to discontinue subsidy assistance for paddy seed production and distribution under the RKVY and National Food Security and Nutrition Mission would cause unrest among the farmers.

Since the State had acute agricultural labour shortage, it was compelled to go for farm mechanization in a big way and if the Union Government limited the outlay for high value agricultural machinery such as tractors and combine harvesters to 25 percent, it would affect the farmers. The machinery was not only essential for ensuring timely farm operations but also supported even the small and marginal farmers to earn additional livelihood by hiring out. So, I request that this limit may be relaxed to 35% under the Sub Mission on Agricultural Mechanization.

As the Kharif season was about to commence, the fertilizer requirement especially of Urea and DAP were expected to increase and sufficient stocking needed to be ensured, he said, requesting that the fertilizers may be supplied as per the monthly supply plan

While Tamil Nadu was also a water starved state calling for serious steps like creation of water harvesting structures and implementation of Micro Irrigation, the Union Government’s allocation of funds for Per Drop More Crop has been reduced to 90,000 hectare, he said and made a request to increase the central share of allocation under Per Drop More Crop Scheme from Rs 255 Crore to Rs 300 crore.