Steps for Doubling Farmers’ Income

The Government constituted an Inter-ministerial Committee in April, 2016 to examine issues relating to “Doubling of Farmers Income” (DFI) and recommend strategies to achieve the same. The Committee submitted its Report to the Government in September, 2018 containing the strategy for doubling of farmers’ income by the year 2022.  The DFI strategy as recommended by the Committee include seven sources of income growth viz., (i) improvement in crop productivity; (ii) improvement in livestock productivity; (iii) resource use efficiency or savings in the cost of production; (iv) increase in the cropping intensity; (v) diversification towards high value crops; (vi) improvement in real prices received by farmers; and (vii) shift from farm to non-farm occupations.

After acceptance of the DFI Committee recommendations, the Government has constituted an ‘Empowered Body’ to review and monitor the progress.

Agriculture being a State subject, the State Governments undertake implementation of programs/schemes for the development of the sector. Government of India supplements the efforts of the State Governments through various schemes/ programs. These schemes/ programs of the Government of India are meant for the welfare of farmers by increasing production, remunerative returns and income support to farmers. A list of initiatives taken by the Government are at Annexure-I.  All these steps of the Government of India are for the welfare of the farmers of the country.

Further, the Government has adopted several developmental programmes, schemes, reforms and policies that focus on higher incomes for the farmers. All these policies & programmes are being supported by higher budgetary allocations, non-budgetary financial resources by way of creating Corpus Funds, and supplementary income transfers under PM-KISAN. The latest major intervention includes the ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat – Agriculture’ which includes comprehensive market reforms and creation of ‘Agricultural Infrastructure Fund (AIF)’ worth Rs. 1 lakh crore and allocation of Rs 500 crore for Bee Keeping initiative.

This information was given in a written reply by the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shri Narendra Singh Tomar in Rajya Sabha today.