Fifteenth Finance Commission created a high-level expert group to recommend measurable performance indicators to the states to stimulate agricultural exports and promote crop production to ensure high import substitution.
The seven-member agricultural export expert team, led by Chairman Sanjeev Puri, has three months to submit his report to the commission. The group was created to assess substitution opportunities for exports and imports of Indian agricultural products, including commodities, semi-finished products, in a changing international scenario trade, and to offer ways to sustainable increase exports and reduce dependence on imports, the commission said.
India ranks second after China in the world for the cultivation of fruits and vegetables, and the first - in terms of harvest of bananas, green peas and mangoes.
Among the members of the group are former Minister of Agriculture Radha Singh, chairman of Nestle IndiaNSE Suresh Narayanan, representatives of the US agricultural technology company. The group will recommend strategies and measures to increase farm productivity, ensure higher added value, reduce waste, and strengthen logistics infrastructure to increase global competitiveness of the sector. Obstacles to private sector investment in the agricultural value chain need to be identified.
- Mafia bosses used EU agricultural funds for criminal activity in the region of the Nebrodi National Park in Sicily (Italy), through which 10 million euros settled in the pockets of mafia bosses since 2013.
- Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Krishi Udan scheme will be launched in speed to help farmers transport their products and improve their costs.
- In an attempt to prevent serious pollution caused by farmers burning plant debris every winter, Indian authorities have announced plans to build more than 100 biogas plants in the north of the country.
