Recalling the Prime Minister’s Nation Wide Address on 12th May 2020, the Finance Minister announced the Part 3 of the Economic Stimulus Package focused on Supply Chain reforms in Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, fisheries and Allied Activities. 11 measures were announced, where 8 were on infrastructure, building logistics, storage capacities, and the rest 3 on Governance and Administrative reforms.
A highlight of the Announcements is as under:
Agriculture Infrastructure
- Farming Infrastructure:
To strengthen the farming infrastructure, a Fund of Rs 1 Lakh crore is created to finance Agriculture Infrastructure Projects at farm gate and aggregation points. This facility will aide Agriculture Cooperative societies, Aggregators, Farmer producer organisations, Agricultural entrepreneurs, and Start-ups. This is expected to give impetus to Post harvest Management Infrastructure. - Micro Food Processing Enterprises
Fund of Rs 10k crores will be created for the benefit of Micro Food Enterprises to help them modernise production techniques, obtain FSSAI license, marketing, branding, exports etc of organic, health and wellness products, nutritional products, and those used as alternatives for healthy living. This will be carried on a cluster based approach for state specific speciality products. - Fisheries
An infrastructure fund of Rs 15K crores is being created to facilitate creation of fishing harbours, cold chains, markets etc. Cage culture, seaweed farming, ornamental fishery, as well as fishing vessels, Traceability, Laboratory Network will be the key focus. - Animal Husbandry Infrastructure
A fund of Rs 15K crores will be created to support establishing units for dairy processing, other processed dairy products for export such as cheese etc. Private Investment in dairy farming, cattle feed, infrastructure development will be encouraged. - Herbal Cultivation
A network of regional mandis for Medicinal Plants will be created along the banks of river Ganga. - Animal disease control program for foot and mouth disease, Brucellois in animals is launched.
- Bee-keeping: A scheme for building infrastructure for development, marketing, storage, and capacity building in bee breeding will be implemented.
- Operation Green will be extended from Tomato, Onion and Potato to all fruits and vegetables, and subsidy for transport and storage for supply to deficient markets will be made available.
Governance Reforms
- Amendments to Essential Commodities Act
This Act has been in existence from 1955. This law is very important as it was promulgated when food shortages were common. Farmers are now producing in abundance but export is not allowed.
This Act now will be amended to allow de-regulation of export for cereal, edible oil, oil seed, pulses, onion and potato. Stock limit will be imposed only in exceptional Circumstances like national calamities, famine, surge in prices. No such stock limit shall apply to food processors, value chain participants, subject to them adhering to installed capacity or to any exporter subject to export demand. - Agriculture Marketing Reforms
A Central Law will be formulated to provide the farmers: 1. Adequate choices for farmers to sell their produce at an attractive price. 2. Barriers free inter-state trade, which at the moment is restricted. 3. A framework for e-trading of his produce will be created. A farmer is presently allowed to sell the produce to licensees only. Hence he is not able to find adequate buyers at a fair price. - Agriculture products: Assurance of price and quality
Farmers lack an enforceable standard mechanism for arriving at predictable price for their produce prior to sowing seeds. Therefore a facilitative legal framework will be created to enable farmers to engage with food processors, aggregators, large retailers, and exports to fix fair price in a transparent manner.
