President of India to Chair Meeting of Governors on Rainfed Farming at Rashtrapati Bhavan

The President of India, Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil, will chair a meeting of the Committee of Governors on rainfed farming at Rashtrapati Bhavan tomorrow. The meeting is a follow-up to the Conference of Governors held in October this year, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, in which the President had announced the formation of a Committee of Governors to go into the issues of enhancing productivity, profitability, sustainability and competitiveness of the agriculture sector in India with special reference to rainfed area farming. The Governors of the States of Punjab & Rajasthan, Maharashtra & Goa, Jammu & Kashmir, Meghalaya, Karnataka, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Nagaland, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Mizoram and Lt. Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands will attend the meeting.

The day long meeting will also be attended amongst others by the Chief Executive Officer of the National Rainfed Area Authority, Dr. J.S. Samra. Secretaries of the Department of Agriculture and Co-operation, Agricultural Research & Education, Animal Husbandry, Dairying & Fisheries, Food Processing Industries, Food & Public Distribution, Panchayati Raj, Water Resources, Financial Services, Corporate Affairs, Public Enterprises as well as the Commissioner of Forward Market Commission, Chairman of SCOPE, the Managing Director of Small Farmers' Agri-Business Consortium and Prof. Abhijit Sen, Member, Planning Commission.

The subjects to be discussed during the day-long deliberation would be Rainfed area farming, Knowledge based agriculture in rainfed area, Policies and Programmes for promotion of dryland farming, Animal husbandry and fisheries for sustainable agriculture in dryland area, Prospects of Food Processing Industry in rainfed areas in the context of farmer-industry-partnership, Agricultural infrastructure key to enhance farm profitability, Convergence of development programmes through Panchayati Raj Institutions for agricultural growth, Efficient use of water resources particularly in dryland area, Promoting investment and risk mitigation in Agriculture and allied sectors, Statutory support for farmer-industry participation, Policy initiatives for farmer industry partnership, Role of PSUs in evolving a Farmer-centric, Industry driven, knowledge based strategy for rainfed area farming, experiences of farmer industry partnership, Convergence of development programmes and farmers participation especially in rainfed area farming and Farmers perspective on farmer-industry partnership.

This release issued at 1730 hrs.