NE NEWS SERVICE
CHENNAI, JUNE 23
Tamil Nadu should focus more on encouraging agro based industries as sustainable agricultural practices in a post COVID-19 era to enhance farmers” income, an expert at the Madras Institute of Development Studies has suggested. Besides, employment opportunities for non-agriculture households should also be a focus area, Prof L Venkatachalam of MIDS said.
There was great potential for developing agro based industrial units such as food processing. For instance, tender coconut water, if processed scientifically, can be exported to other states and countries. Coir and coconut husk based industry can be developed in the coconut belt of Tamil Nadu owing to the export potential and considerable demand for coir and coconut husk, especially in the Gulf countries, Venkatachalam said.
Though agricultural production and productivity are relatively high in Tamil Nadu, the value added in the sector has not yet been realised to its full potential. More concentration is needed in that area so that more employment and income can be generated.
“Since COVID-19 is going to stay with us in future too, we have a good opportunity to establish units to produce the traditional medicine on a commercial scale by encouraging farmers to cultivate the Siddha plants and herbs and provide them as inputs to such industrial units,” he said.
This initiative will increase employment and income in the industry and agriculture sectors, apart from bringing substantial earnings to the country on the export front, he added. According to official sources, agriculture is still the largest source of livelihood in Tamil Nadu and about two-thirds of the rural households depend on agriculture.
As part of an initiative to rev up the agriculture sector, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami had constituted a high-level committee headed by former RBI Governor C Rangarajan to assess the overall immediate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on different sectors of the state’s economy.
The committee is expected to submit its recommendations on policy measures that can put the state back on the growth trajectory. Though there is no estimate on the quantum of losses suffered by farmers due to the lockdown, distress sale of vegetables, fruits and flowers was reported from across the state.
Initially, some distraught farmers hit by input and output supply chain disruption, dumped their perishable produce on the roads. Some farmers could not harvest the crops due to sudden labour shortage imposed by the lockdown in the last week of March onwards. Responding to the crisis, the state government announced a slew of immediate measures such as a three-month moratorium for repayment of instalments for crop loans, opening of cold storage facilities, deployment of mobile vegetable and fruit carts and the E-Thottam or E-farm services of the Department of Horticulture and Plantation Crops.
