Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan held discussion with the members of farmers' organizations in New Delhi today as part of his dialogue with farmers and farmers' organizations every Tuesday. Shri Chouhan welcomed all the presidents, conveners and farmers of the farmers' organizations. The farmers' organizations discussed and gave many important suggestions on reducing the cost of agriculture, giving profitable prices, protecting crops from water-logging, availability of pesticides and good seeds, and how to protect crops from animals etc.

Shri Chouhan informed said that farmers were also concerned about the deterioration of soil health due to uncontrolled use of pesticides and fertilizers and how to make information about government schemes to reach everyone so that all farmers can take advantage of it. Farmers said that due to lack of information, many times farmers are not able to take advantage of the schemes. Farmers praised that crop insurance scheme is a good scheme but all farmers are not able to get insurance. Farmers have also given suggestions regarding getting money on Kisan Credit Card. Farmers have put forward many practical problems like if a transformer burns, it should be replaced within the time limit so that crop irrigation is not affected. Farmers also discussed the problem of contaminated water coming out of factories and due to which, crops or underground water gets spoiled. For me, this discussion is very useful because serving farmers is like worshipping God.

The Union Minister said that the problems of the farmers are such that they appear small but if these are solved, the income of the farmers will increase by 10 to 20 percent. Therefore, we have decided that the Central Government will consider the problems related to the Central Government such as making the law more stringent so that farmers do not get spurious seeds. He further said that there are many things that the state governments have to do. We will send the suggestions related to the farmers to the concerned state governments.

Shri Chouhan said that the farmers have also given suggestions to avoid the problems of maintaining records through manual survey, which are very useful. I thank the farmers for coming for discussion and giving their valuable suggestions. We will work together on the suggestions we have received and will also work together with the state governments to solve the problems.

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SS