NEW DELHI — Vice President of India Jagdeep
Dhankhar on Sunday called upon entrepreneurs to make the most of the
government’s incentives and raise the number of agri-startups, which number
just 6,000 in a country of 1.4 billion.-
- Addressing
the gathering at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, on the theme
‘Fostering Agri-Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Viksit Bharat’,
Dhankhar said, “There are 6,000 agri-startups, but for a country of 1.4
billion, a country that has 100 million farming communities farmlands, this is
not the right number.”
-
- “The
government has taken many initiatives. People must be aware of them. Make them
aware of them. Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO), I studied it in great depth.
There is a budgetary allocation of Rs 1 lakh crore. This can fund various
activities to enhance and strengthen infrastructure for the farmer,” he said.
-
- Vice
President underscored that "we must move from food security to farmer
prosperity." The farmer, he said, must be prosperous, and this evolution
must originate from institutions like Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.
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- He further
elaborated that farmers must step off the farmland and involve themselves in
marketing their produce.
-
- "Farmers
should not just be producers and forget about it. That would mean they will
painstakingly, tirelessly raise a produce and will sell it at a time when it is
right for the market, without holding it. It doesn’t give much
financially," he noted.
-
- He called
for empowering the farmers by generating awareness and informing them that the
government cooperative system is very robust.
-
