The government will come out with a scheme involving the Agriculture, Health, and Local Self-Government Departments to make the State self-sufficient in vegetables in 470 days and to help farmers.
Announcing this in the Assembly on Monday in reply to a discussion on the crisis in the agriculture sector, Agriculture Minister V.S. Sunil Kumar said the measures taken to increase vegetable cultivation had started paying dividends and the production had gone up from six lakh to 12.75 lakh tonnes.
The Minister said the government was with the farmers and the crisis being faced by the sector was due to the wrong polices of the Centre. He called for united action to overcome the crisis and seek the support of the Centre.
Mr. Sunil Kumar drew the attention of the House to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget speech that the Centre would support those States that passed three laws in the agriculture sector. The laws were the Model Agricultural Land Leasing Act, 2016; Model Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2017; and the Model Agricultural Produce and Livestock Contract Farming and Services(Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2018.
Listing out the measures taken to reduce the impact of the crisis, the Minister said the Kerala State Farmers Debt Relief Commission had disbursed ₹82 crore to needy farmers.
Trade pact to hit ryots
He said the Assembly should pass a resolution to drop milk products from the Indo-U.S. trade negotiations as it would hit State livestock farmers.
Earlier, the Opposition was caught off guard after Mr. Sunil Kumar agreed to a discussion after the issue was raised by Sunny Joseph (Congress) as an adjournment motion.
Mr. Joseph, who represents Peravur, said the rubber subsidy had not been paid since March 2019. Banks were refusing to offer loans to farmers as Supplyco had failed to pay back the banks. The procurement of cashew had stopped, he said narrating the plight of farmers. The Opposition tried hard to get an assurance from the Minister to raise the minimum support price of raw coconut from ₹27 to ₹40 and the rubber subsidy from ₹150 to ₹ 200.
After Speaker P. Sreeramakrishnan rejected the motion, United Democratic Front legislators, led by Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, walked out alleging that the government had failed to address the crisis and check 22 farmer suicides after the Left Democratic Front came to power.
