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Minister of State for Agriculture, Shri Kanti Lal Bhuria, today asked NAFED and other cooperative marketing organizations to bring about professionalism in their operations by making the best use of the recent Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act.
The Minister also exhorted cooperative institutions to upgrade their technology, especially relating to storage and processing. Information-technology should be used for gathering market-related information, both domestic and international, for evolving better marketing strategies. This would help farmers get good prices for their produce, the Minister said.
Shri Bhuria was addressing the Annual General Meeting of the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (NAFED).
Lauding NAFED for its price support to farmers, the Minister said, its operations have been helping farmers in all parts of the country, especially small farmers who do not have the necessary market information or the capacity to make use of such information.
NAFED has a bigger than usual responsibility to shoulder this year because of drought, the Minister said, as the farming community would need its support for marketing their produce.
The Minister informed that NAFED is able to procure 26 lakh tonne oilseed worth Rs. 3900 crore a year only through state and village level operations. NAFED procures agricultural commodities on behalf of the government through price-support and market-intervention schemes.
The meeting was also addressed by the Chairman, NAFED, Shri Ajit Kumar Singh and President, NCUI, Dr. S. S. Sisodia.
NAFED has been able to increases its exports from Rs. 345 crore last year to Rs. 561 crore in 2002-03. Out of this, onion exports contributed Rs. 238 crore. For the first time, it exported rubber worth Rs. 6.5 crore.
NAFED is planning to introduce warehouse-receipt based financing and direct marketing through local cooperative societies, futures trading, contract farming and other such initiatives.
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