BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has emphasised on the necessity to make agriculture profitable. Speaking after inaugurating the flower studio at the flower auction centre and the new building of Karnataka State Seeds Corporation Limited (KSSCL), he said that severe crop loss is driving the farming community to look for alternative means of livelihood. “The agriculture profit is determined by right price for the produce, quality seeds and suitable environment. Today, the seeds supplied to farmers are substandard, there is no profit for the crops produced and climate change has consistently affected fodder crops. This is the reason many farmers are giving up agriculture. It becomes the government’s responsibility to make agriculture profitable,” he said.
Informing about his government’s contribution to the agriculture sector, Siddaramaiah said his government had never missed the deadline to distribute seeds to farmers over the past four years. Without naming the previous BJP government, he said that lack of a proper seed distribution mechanism caused a farmers’ protest in 2008 which lead to police firing.Stating that his interest in agriculture is because he hails from a farming community and understood their problems better, he taunted some of the leaders who called themselves ‘mannina maga’ (son of soil) and said, “A few people call themselves as ‘son of soil’ without doing even a bit for them. Nobody gave them that title, they just claim to be farmers. We never said we are sons of soil, but we just work for their welfare,” he said.
Minister for Agriculture Krishna Byregowda said KSSCL has worked to enhance the quality of seeds supplied to the farmers to ensure productivity and assured that farmers will get quality seeds within next three years. On the flower auction centre, the Agriculture Minister said that the Bengaluru flower auction centre will begin online trading soon on the lines of Agricultural Produce Market Committee.He said that the city’s flower auction centre is the second such centre in Asia after Japan’s flower auction centre. It has so far set an international record by conducting a business of `135 crore since its inception in 1995. The studio at the auction centre inaugurated on Monday will give a benefit to the flower auction.