Strategy of pushing allied-agri sectors bearing fruits now: PM

The center’s efforts in encouraging agriculture-related sectors such as animal husbandry and horticulture to increase farmers’ income are finally bearing fruit and as a result, in the past eight years, incomes of small farmers and landless farmers have shown a remarkable increase, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday.

After the inauguration of Sabar Dairy’s new dairy projects in the northern state of Gujarat, Modi stated that due to the center’s efforts, farmers’ incomes are showing a significant increase across the country including Gujarat.

Double the farmers’ income

“Horticulture, animal husbandry and fisheries all contribute to increases in farm income. Most importantly, landless farmers have reported the maximum increase in their incomes. This means that apart from farm output, the strategy of working on alternative ways to increase farmers’ income is bearing fruit now “.

Notably, in 2016, Modi set a target of doubling farmers’ income by 2022.

He also mentioned that improving the industries of Khadi and villages is another way of generating wealth in villages. Modi said, “For the first time ever, the annual turnover of khadi gramodyog (village industries) has exceeded INR 1 crore. That is why in the last eight years this sector has created more than 1.5 crore new jobs at the village level. ” , addressing milk producers in Sabarkantha and Aravalli districts in North Gujarat.

New and improved units

The Prime Minister on Thursday inaugurated two dairy projects and laid the foundation stone for another project of the Cooperative Dairy Producers Union in Saberkantha (Dark Saber) district of Himtnagar. Sabar Dairy is one of the 18 dairy federation members of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which manufactures and markets Amul Dairy products.

Sabar Dairy milk powder plant was established with a capacity of 120 tons per day (TPD) at a cost of Rs 300 crore. They have commissioned a UHT milk bottling plant at a cost of Rs 125 crore with a capacity of 3 liters per day (LLPD).

The dairy is also setting up a cheese and whey drying plant for around Rs 600 crore. The factory will manufacture cheddar, mozzarella and processed cheese with a capacity of 20, 10 and 16 tons per day, respectively, and the whey produced during cheese making must be dried in a drying whey with a capacity of 40 tons per day. The Prime Minister laid the foundation stone for the project.

Shamalbhai Patel, Chairman of Sabar Dairy, said, “In the past 20 years, our milk processing capacity has increased from 3 LLPD to 30 LLPD. We used to pay $165 per kg of fat for a milk product in 2002, but today we are paying 860 pounds per kilogram of fat. Dairy has touched an all-time high turnover of Rs 6,800 crore for the financial year 2022.” What started as a federation of 19 milk co-operative societies in 1964, today has become an 1,800-strong union of about 1.23 lakh women members.