Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, 28th May

In a belated move, Odisha government on Thursday exempted fruits and vegetables from Regulated Market Committees (RMCs) fees.

It was decided at a meeting of the State Level Agriculture Task force meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Gokul Chandra Pati to deliberate over the issues relating to rejuvenation of agriculture in the State.

RMCs are established as per the provisions of the Odisha Agricultural Produce Markets Act, 1956. The main objective for establishing RMCs is to facilitate backward and forward market integration of agricultural produce, which ultimately leads to remunerative price realization to the producers and availability of quality produce to the consumers.

Pati directed the Cooperative department to issue guidelines to all the field level officers and spread the message to the farmers through wide publicity. Based on the suggestions received from different quarters and recommendations of the agriculture scientists, Pati has advised the department to focus on technology transfer to the farmers.

The department has been asked to popularize scientific methods and cost effective technologies through progressive farmers, participatory field demonstration and service extension entrepreneurship. Beisdes, the chief secretary stressed for promoting agricultural service extension as an enterprise by involving progressive farmers, agriculture graduates, farmers associations, and self help groups [SHG] etc.

Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology [OUAT] has been directed to work out area specific plans for water use in irrigated areas involving the pani panchayts. “Such intervention will lead to more productivity and reduce the consumption of water”.

The meeting also deliberated on popularization of the innovative technologies like ‘zero tillage’, Paira cropping, un-puddled transplanting, low cost and more efficient agricultural implements, post harvest machines, crop specific processing units, automatic cleaning, weighing and bagging systems, mixed crop etc.

According to experts, zero tillage’ technology will reduce the cost of production to the tune of Rs.2500/- per hectare by doing away with tillage operations. The farmer will also save time and can plant 15 days earlier than usual tilling methods.

Zero tillage method utilizes the available moisture level of the soil for planting. Similarly, the method of ‘unpuddled transplanting’ reduces the cost of production to the tune of Rs.1700/- per hect. These cost effective methods will be more helpful for small and marginal farmers who constitute 86% of the farming community, officials said.

It may be pertinent to mention that 65% of State’s population depends on agriculture and gross cropped area of the State is around 90.54 lakh hect.

Under the provisions of the Odisha Agricultural Produce Markets Act, 1956, 65 RMCs have been established in the State for regulation of purchase and sale of agricultural produce.