Puri, May 29 (ANI): Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi and state Agriculture Minister Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo attend the launch of Developed Agriculture Sankalp Abhiyan, at Sakhigopal in Puri on Thursday. (ANI Photo)
| Photo Credit:
ANI
Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday launched the 15-day “Viksit Krishi Sankalp Abhiyan” (campaign to build a developed agriculture for India), at a function near Puri, Odisha in which the government aims to improve the linkage between farmers and agriculture research.
Setting a target of 168.88 million tonnes (mt) of foodgrains production for kharif 2025, Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan earlier this month had announced the plan to launch the campaign to cover about 2 crore farmers and make sure to help achieve target. In the 2024 kharif season, the country produced 168.07 mt of foodgrains, Chouhan said on Wednesday.
Experts said the target is easily achievable for which there is no need to launch a 15-day programme, as only in one season there was 12.3 mt increase in foodgrain production. India’s kharif 2023 output was 155.77 mt. “The ambition should be higher so that all stakeholders are motivated to achieve the target,” said a senior agriculture scientist.
The minister announced that such campaigns will be conducted twice a year, before the kharif and rabi season sowing.
Under the “Viksit Krishi Sankalp Abhiyan”, some 2,000 teams have been formed to cover all districts in which each team will comprise of four scientists from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), staff of local agriculture office and Krishi Vigyan Kendra of the district. There will be three meetings by one team in a day and there is plan to mobilise 10-12 lakh farmers every day (by all the 2,000 plus teams) for those meetings.
The teams are mandated to create awareness about climate-resilient seed varieties, availability of fertilizers, monsoon forecast and benefits of existing government programmes.
Chouhan, while addressing the gathering of farmers, said the campaign seeks to help India become the “food basket of the world” by directly connecting agricultural scientists with farmers. Under the initiative, the teams will not only provide hands-on guidance, but will also collect feedback from the field.
“This is the first time since Independence that such a campaign is being undertaken to connect scientists and farmers directly. The initiative is result-oriented, and under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, there will be no shortage of funds for agricultural research,” Chouhan said. He also appealed to the farmers to actively engage with the scientists.
“You are going to serve the farmers. It is your good fortune that you are getting a chance to go to the village and talk to the farmers and increase their crop production, there can be no greater virtue than this,” he said in an apparent reference to the team members who were virtually connected with the launch meeting.
Highlighting India’s agricultural achievements, Chouhan said the country produced 353.96 mt of foodgrains this year (2024-25), which is 21.66 mt more than previous year.
“India is now capable of feeding its population of 145 crore. But we must not stop — we aim to become the food basket of the world, not just meet our domestic needs but also export to other countries,” he said.
Chouhan visited Lord Jagannath temple at Puri before leaving for the venue and termed the initiative is not just an agricultural campaign, but a national mission to ensure the country’s food reserves remain full and farmers’ incomes also rise.
Published on May 29, 2025
Puri, May 29 (ANI): Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi and state Agriculture Minister Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo attend the launch of Developed Agriculture Sankalp Abhiyan, at Sakhigopal in Puri on Thursday. (ANI Photo)
| Photo Credit:
ANI
Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday launched the 15-day “Viksit Krishi Sankalp Abhiyan” (campaign to build a developed agriculture for India), at a function near Puri, Odisha in which the government aims to improve the linkage between farmers and agriculture research.
Setting a target of 168.88 million tonnes (mt) of foodgrains production for kharif 2025, Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan earlier this month had announced the plan to launch the campaign to cover about 2 crore farmers and make sure to help achieve target. In the 2024 kharif season, the country produced 168.07 mt of foodgrains, Chouhan said on Wednesday.
Experts said the target is easily achievable for which there is no need to launch a 15-day programme, as only in one season there was 12.3 mt increase in foodgrain production. India’s kharif 2023 output was 155.77 mt. “The ambition should be higher so that all stakeholders are motivated to achieve the target,” said a senior agriculture scientist.
The minister announced that such campaigns will be conducted twice a year, before the kharif and rabi season sowing.
Under the “Viksit Krishi Sankalp Abhiyan”, some 2,000 teams have been formed to cover all districts in which each team will comprise of four scientists from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), staff of local agriculture office and Krishi Vigyan Kendra of the district. There will be three meetings by one team in a day and there is plan to mobilise 10-12 lakh farmers every day (by all the 2,000 plus teams) for those meetings.
The teams are mandated to create awareness about climate-resilient seed varieties, availability of fertilizers, monsoon forecast and benefits of existing government programmes.
Chouhan, while addressing the gathering of farmers, said the campaign seeks to help India become the “food basket of the world” by directly connecting agricultural scientists with farmers. Under the initiative, the teams will not only provide hands-on guidance, but will also collect feedback from the field.
“This is the first time since Independence that such a campaign is being undertaken to connect scientists and farmers directly. The initiative is result-oriented, and under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, there will be no shortage of funds for agricultural research,” Chouhan said. He also appealed to the farmers to actively engage with the scientists.
“You are going to serve the farmers. It is your good fortune that you are getting a chance to go to the village and talk to the farmers and increase their crop production, there can be no greater virtue than this,” he said in an apparent reference to the team members who were virtually connected with the launch meeting.
Highlighting India’s agricultural achievements, Chouhan said the country produced 353.96 mt of foodgrains this year (2024-25), which is 21.66 mt more than previous year.
“India is now capable of feeding its population of 145 crore. But we must not stop — we aim to become the food basket of the world, not just meet our domestic needs but also export to other countries,” he said.
Chouhan visited Lord Jagannath temple at Puri before leaving for the venue and termed the initiative is not just an agricultural campaign, but a national mission to ensure the country’s food reserves remain full and farmers’ incomes also rise.
Published on May 29, 2025
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The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making
The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution
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