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Agricultural
Database
National
Agriculture Policy:
Government
Support for Agricultural Production and Contingency Plan:
It is necessary to take up
supportive programs by the government for encouraging farmers in using
modern technologies in order to increase crop production. Steps to be
taken by the government in this respect are:
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Government support may
be provided to farmers in a number of ways, such as, reducing prices
of agricultural inputs, ensuring fair prices for agricultural
products, exempting duties and taxes, sharing the cost of
supplementary irrigation, lowering the rates of interest on
agricultural credit, etc. A provision of block allocation for the
Ministry of Agriculture will be kept in the Annual Development Program
(ADP) for this purpose. This money will only be used for the
agricultural support programs of the government.
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Government will
undertake contingency support programs to make up the farmers’ loss
due to any natural disaster. A provision of block allocation will be
kept in the revenue head for the Ministry of Agriculture for this
purpose.
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The Ministry of
Agriculture will have a contingency plan for taking up emergency
agricultural rehabilitation programmes (ARP) to recover from the crop
losses due to any natural disaster at both the farmers’ and national
levels.
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Early warning system
will be strengthened to inform the farmers about their roles in an
adverse weather condition on the basis of specific information
analysis. A plan is being prepared by the Department of
Agricultural Extension (DAE) for providing ‘extension message’ on
the basis of agro-meteorology. An agro-meteorological centre will be
established in the DAE for this purpose. The main function of this
centre will be to analyze agro-meteorological and agro-climatic data
and forecast the sowing/transplanting time and possible yields of
crops to the farmers as well as to provide agro-meteorological advice.
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