Govt plans agriculture marketing strategy

PATNA: The state government has embarked on an agriculture marketing strategy and developed 54 market yards with the help of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard). It has a target to develop 95 market yards across the state.
The government has planned to revamp the Bihar Agriculture Marketing Board and its infrastructure to provide facilities to the farmers to take their produce directly to the retailers by eliminating middlemen in the process.The objective is to create a self-sufficient village economy based on cooperative farming and efficient market linkage, said director, Bihar Agriculture Management and Extension Training Institute (BAMETI), R N Singh.
The State Agriculture Marketing Board is being rejuvenated for creating market infrastructure link in a manner so as to source the agriculture market produce from the farmers directly to market. A decision in this regard was taken after a workshop at which national and international marketing experts had given their suggestions to CM's agriculture adviser Mangla Rai and principal secretary, agriculture, Alok Kumar Sinha.
Bihar contributes 13% to national vegetable production, 6% to quality fruits production, and 4.7% contribution to foodgrains production. It has more of agriculture output than the storage facility.
The government has 1,324 acres of land for creating marketing facilities, 1,500 rural haats, dry storage capacity of 1.4 lakh metric tonne (MT) and cold storage capacity of 15.5 lakh MTs, the BAMETI director said, adding that a value chain has to be created for safe delivery of vegetables and fruits and their processed products at respective destinations. A surveillance system will be developed so that the farmers get the highest price of their produce, he added.
A special crop development programme is on the anvil to identify one crop from each district for production on cluster basis. Production of organic fruits and vegetables would be promoted, farmers would be organized as promoter groups and the food processing industries, including the indigenous industries, would be invited to arrange contract farming.
Under the Agribusiness Infrastructure Development Investment Programme (AIDIP), an ADB project, private markets would be developed in 11 districts. The investors engaged in developing these markets would be given 35% grant through competitive bid process. These private markets would deal in fruits, vegetables, foodgrains and also meat, fish and egg, Singh said.