India: Farm Sector Calls for Better Market Access

Indian farmer organizations on Tuesday urged the Finance Ministry to enhance market access besides taking steps to accelerate investment in the farm sector, reports The Hindu BusinessLine. Representatives of these organizations, office bearers of farmers co-operatives and companies engaged in the farm sector, and experts met Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for a pre-Budget consultation. The meeting was also attended by stakeholders from the agro-processing industry.

The main areas of discussion included agricultural marketing reforms, organic and natural farming, agricultural commodities markets and future trading, storage infrastructure for agricultural produce, animal husbandry, agro-processing industry, and ideas for reducing food subsidy.

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The significant suggestions received from the stakeholders included building the brands of Indian agricultural products abroad, giving the processing industry benefits/importance equivalent to agriculture, accelerating the depreciation benefit to the agro-processing industry, revamping of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, encouraging the development of farm ecosystem services and market intelligence systems, further tweaking e-NAM (National Agriculture Market), developing agro-medicinal forestry, and fiscal incentives for farmers with primacy to soil health.

Continue reading at The Hindu BusinessLine.

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