NABARD conducts district level awareness for farmer clubs

NAMCHI, 18 Nov: National Bank for Agriculture and Rural development (NABARD) conducted a district level awareness programme for Farmers Clubs of South District under the scheme for Development, Strengthening of Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure, Grading and Standardization today at Hotel Samdrup, Namchi.
The programme was organised by NABCONS a subsidiary of NABARD in collaboration with National Institute of Agriculture (NIAM), Ministry Agriculture, Government of India. The programme was attended by Assistant General Manager, NABARD, Gangtok Mahesh Goyal, DDM, NABARD, Namchi, J C Biswas, SMS KVK South, IP Shiva Koti, Deputy Director ATMA, Kamal Thatal, members of the different Farmers Clubs of South District, NGOs, Bankers and KVK Officials.
AGM, NABARD Gangtok, Mahesh Goyal inaugurated the programme and briefed the participants on the scheme and apprised the house that farmers clubs can play a very important role in popularizing this scheme for Development, Strengthening of Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure, Grading and Standardization so that the farmers can come forward to take the benefit of credit linked back ended subsidy.
He also emphasized the importance of cleaning and grading for getting better price for agriculture commodities. Mr Goyal informed that this scheme is reform linked and Sikkim has amended the APMC act and all benefits can be taken under the scheme.
DDM, NABARD, Namchi, JC Biswas gave a detailed presentation on the various aspects of the scheme and its relevance in increasing farmers’ incomes. He informed that assistance under the scheme is available to individuals, groups of farmers, growers, SHGs, Cooperative Marketing Federations etc.
Under the scheme subsidy @ 33.33 % of the capital cost of the project subject to upper ceiling of Rs 60.00 Lakhs is available for North Eastern states. Directorate of Marketing and Inspection (DMI), Ministry of Agriculture, GoI, is the nodal agency to operate the scheme while NABARD will be administering the subsidy and monitoring the progress of the scheme.
Deputy Director ATMA, Kamal Thatal in his address appreciated the schemes which can benefit the farmers of the state. Looking at the current scenario of agriculture in Sikkim, farmers only produce few crops and vegetables for sale in the market and even that does not fetch them the desired price. There is wide demand while production is low with no surplus production at all in the state.
Marketing is a big problem and there is only one agency, SIMFED, that assures the maximum price for the farmers’ produce but this agency has also failed to give the desired price to the farmers. “Our marketing is not organised, and there are no proper marketing agencies to regulate the market”, he said. We have to find the long run solution for which he urged all the educated youth to explore this field of marketing.
The members of the farmers clubs asked various questions on the schemes. President of Krishi Kalayan Sangh (growers club) Sadam, Kamal Gurung informed that they had applied for government schemes but they found that the banks are not ready to finance any project. AGM, NABARD, Mahesh Goyal expressed his dissatisfaction over such approach of the banks and said that the banks are supposed to finance government schemes.