PATNA: A team of 50 officials from Bihar will soon visit Gujarat to study cooperative farming models, said Cooperatives Minister Pramod Kumar.
The team, after studying cooperative farming in Gujarat, will replicate it in the state. The minister said that the state has potential for cooperative farming in view of small land holdings.
The visiting team will see how people are carrying out cooperative farming and how it is creating employment opportunities there.
“The teams after studying Gujarat’s cooperative farming will replicate the same in the state,” Kumar told the media.
He said that cooperative farming will generate employment for people, which will help prevent migration from the state.
“When people have opportunities in their state, why will they go to other states in search of job opportunities,” he asked.
Earlier, farmers used to have 100 acres, 150 acres or 200 acres of land but now that is not the case. Now, it (land parcels) has been further divided into small pieces of land. We are exploring the potential of cooperative farming in the state, he added.
Stating that Bihar has the potential of carrying out cooperative farming, the minister said that “now the state’s farmers do not have big land holdings.”
Citing the example of famous Tilkut business of Gaya Ji, he said that a plenty of firms are engaged in the preparation of Tilkut in the area.
Interestingly, til is not produced in the state as it is imported from other states such as Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. “After talking to farmers, we will explore whether or not til can be produced in Magadh region through cooperative farming.”
Similarly, whether or not tomato can be produced through cooperative farming in Vaishali district, Minister said and added that Tirhut Veg Federation, following an agreement with HUL, has supplied its first consignment of 10 tonnes of tomato to it (HUL).
Cooperative Department’s secretary Dharmendra Singh said that the department is going to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Cooperative department and National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Limited (NFCSF) to revive two closed Sugar Mills of Sakri (Madhubani) and Raiyam (Darbhanga).
A high-level committee chaired by chief secretary transferred the above two sugar mills to cooperative department to run them.
The decision has been taken to revive closed sugar mills as part of the state government’s second resolve “Prosperous Industry-Empowered Bihar” under its ambitious “Saat Nischay-3” programme.