Agriculture Policy

Women in Agriculture

Advocacy for women’s rights and gender sensitization is at the very core of developmental approaches today. Communication for social mobilization therefore should incorporate gender as an equity perspective.

• Women will be important project partners in agricultural development. So, emphasis will be laid upon capacity-building and empowerment of women to achieve the goals.
• Women friendly farm equipments will be promoted.
• The creativity, productivity and entrepreneurship of women and their capacity for furthering their skills will be dealt with special focus through gender-analysis and gender sensitization in all agricultural developmental approaches.
• Capable women SHGs will be given preference, if they come forward to deal in the agri-inputs.

Application of ICT in Agriculture

Application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) holds great promise for facilitating the development of Agriculture and allied activities in several ways. The use of internet and other electronic media can be the most cost effective and useful way of disseminating technology and commercial information to promote development of agriculture and allied activities.

The Department of Agriculture will operate internet portal to disseminate information on the recommended practices for various crops. A special technical cell shall update the information on the portal on a daily basis giving advice to farmers on specific crops. The farmers would be encouraged to send their queries to the portal for which answers would be furnished through the portal within a day. Such an interactive portal will greatly enhance the relevance of technical advice to individual farmers. A similar interactive portal will be operated by the Department of Co-operation or an independent agency dedicated to gathering market information for farmers. The information on prices of various commodities in different markets in the State will be posted on the portal on a daily basis. An e-commerce facility will be set up to facilitate online sale and purchase of agricultural produce. This would greatly reduce the transaction costs incurred by farmers in marketing their produce and enable them to secure reasonable prices.

Operationalisation of The Policy

Rules and Resolutions will be framed / passed as appropriate by the Government to operationalise the State Agriculture Policy. Operational Plans to address the problems of the farmers will be prepared at the district level with involvement of all stake holders including PRIs through participatory and bottom-up planning and such District Agricultural Plans (DAPs) will be integrated into a State Agricultural Plan (SAP). The Department of Agriculture at the state level will coordinate with other allied departments to evolve appropriate mechanisms and guidelines to implement this Policy.

The Policy is intended to help in rejuvenating the agriculture sector of Odisha and bringing lasting improvement in the economic condition of the farmers. An integrated implementation of the intentions of the Government would definitely achieve the targeted annual growth rate of 4 per cent during the Eleventh Five Year Plan and ensure food and nutritional security to all the citizens of the State.