Krushi Odisha, organised by the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment every year to showcase the state’s progress in the agricultural and allied sectors, serves as a critical platform to demonstrate the success and evolvement of agrarian practices in sync with modern agriculture and innovations.
This year’s theme “Building Resilience through Inclusive Agriculture” is self-explanatory and aims to converge stakeholders for a common cause to bring prosperity to the farming community by developing a robust farming ecosystem which is inclusive, gender and nutrition sensitive and forward-looking to preserve rich agricultural heritage and biodiversity.
Despite challenges, Odisha’s agriculture has been a story of transformation - from a state of sustenance to surplus, and from margin to mainstream. Science-driven and evidence-based initiatives to drive economic growth and livelihood, social inclusion and empowerment, building a resilient agriculture future by climate adaptation, preserving heritage, technological modernisation and policy dialogue have been the cardinal principles for the overall growth of this sector.
Now, this sector is undergoing a dynamic shift, characterised by record production, strategic investments and a shift towards an inclusive pathway. The state has significantly increased its budget allocations, rolled out innovative schemes and put focus on an inclusive and whole-of-society approach in the agriculture sector. Odisha has pioneered digital agriculture that can be used as a blueprint for similar state-wide transformation.
Over time, the state’s food grain production has increased at a rate higher than previous years. Odisha has over 61.80 lakh hectare of cultivable land and a population of about 4.5 crore, with a sizable youth working force being supported to become agri-prenuers under Mukyamantri Krushi Udyog Yojana, generating employment and boosting the rural economy.
The state government had launched a landmark initiative to provide better price to paddy growers and bring farmers into financial mainstream. Government is now procuring paddy from farmers at `3,100 per quintal, providing input assistance over and above the minimum support price from the kharif marketing season 2025.
The government is shouldering and focusing on growth of this sector by involving all the stakeholders to bring a transformative change. Forward-looking and visionary schematic initiatives such as Shree Anna Abhiyan, CM-KISAN, PM-KISAN, Krushi Vidhya Nidhi Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Dhan-Dhaanya Krishi Yojana have been spearheaded by the government for an inclusive and sustainable agriculture future.
Digital Crop Survey has been conducted for collecting correct and real-time data through a mobile application. Through this, actual crop sown area is estimated which help in better dissemination of customised agro advisory services and other related information.
Special emphasis is being given for popularisation of different farm machineries, equipment for reducing cost of cultivation, timely completion of agricultural activities, and drudgery reduction for farm women and labour. Regional and sub-divisional melas are being organised to make available farm machinery to solve the labour force shortage during the cropping seasons.
The state has introduced a new Cold Storage Policy to strengthen cold storage facilities and infrastructure and to establish at least one cold storage in each of the 58 sub-divisions. This will help enhance income of farmers by providing better market opportunities, value-addition and processing of agriculture, horticulture and allied sector commodities, to reduce post-harvest losses and to prevent distress sale of harvested crops.
The government has taken significant steps to export fresh fruits and vegetables from Odisha to 10 countries such as UAE, Qatar, Italy, Poland, Ireland, England, France, Germany, Sweden and Belgium. With the involvement of 33 Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), 13 districts have exported mangoes, dragon fruit, apple ber, okra, pointed gourd, ivy gourd, long beans, bitter gourd, banana, green papaya and drumsticks.
The three-day Krushi Odisha will showcase the status of agriculture through 12 thematic sessions which reflect the Vision Odisha @ 2036 and Viksit Bharat @ 2047, with different subject-specific discussions, debates and discourses to chart out a resilient food system pathway in the state.
Presence of more than 15,000 farmers, about 60 scientists of national and international repute as speakers, display of modern farm machineries and live demonstration; felicitation to lead farmers, women self-help groups and FPOs, AI-enabled information dissemination and farmers’ facilitation centres promise to make the event more meaningful.
The outcome of these three days will pave way for agricultural innovation, research and extension to realise the dreams of barefoot scientists living across the state and help design a robust and resilient agriculture pathway for the people of Odisha.
Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo
Deputy chief minister, Agriculture & Farmers’ Empowerment, Energy, Odisha