THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The proposed Kerala Economic Revival Programme (KERA) backed by the World Bank aims at making farming more professional and remunerative. The KERA is part of a large-scale programme to revive the agriculture sector under the Value Added Agriculture Mission (VAAM) chaired by the chief minister.
On Thursday, Agriculture Minister P Prasad had discussions with Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on the funding and Centre’s approval procedures for KERA. He urged the Central minister to sanction the project without delay. World Bank representatives have agreed to sanction a loan of Rs 2,240 crore for the project worth Rs 2863 crore. The rest will be funded by the state government.
The KERA is the latest of a series of initiatives under VAAM that started with the “Njangalum Krishiyilekk”, a programme to popularise farming as a vocation launched last year. A total of 27,000 Krishikoottams or farmers’ collectives were formed in the state under the programme.
The collectives are grouped under three categories - ‘production’, ‘service’ and ‘marketing and value added’. A focused intervention programme was also launched by handpicking 1,076 collectives in the value-added sector, 200 in the service sector and over 5000 in the production sector.
“The collectives in the marketing sector would rope in orders and seek the support of the collectives in the service sector for getting the produce in desired quantity from the producers’ collectives. Quantity, quality standards and remuneration would be pre-fixed,” said a source in the agriculture department. The department is in the final stage of the formation of a company - Kerala Agro Business Company. The company would be assigned with the marketing of the produce.
The KERA will help VAAM provide tools for collectives in the production sector, mechanisation assistance for collectives in the service sector, and storage and value-added production support to collectives in the value-added sector.
