Prime Minister Narendra Modi. PTI file Photo
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who in the past has come in for flak for stating that the income of farmers in the country could double by 2022, once again reiterated his belief at Amreli in Gujarat on Sunday.
“If we work in an organised manner, the Indian farmer has the strength that the government, society and farmer can unitedly work to help him (the farmer) double his income in the coming five years. To achieve that, one needs to move from traditional norms to modern practices,” Modi told a gathering after inaugurating a honey extraction unit.
“If you use Narmada waters via drip irrigation, the water would last 100 years and benefit future generations, too. Many farmers have switched to solar pumps to save the cost of electricity. Imagine if a group of farmers install solar pumps on the periphery of the village or their farms it could bring down the cost of power generation,” he said.
The prime minister also called upon farmers to begin sowing timber along the periphery of their farms, instead of putting up fences.
He said the Union government is working on a new law that would give them right over the trees along their farms, unlike currently where they can be prosecuted by forest officials.
“Today, we import logs from the world. If our farmers decide to sow teak or timber at the periphery of their farms, we can save money,” he said, adding that all this and other steps could help reduce production cost as well as improve earnings of farmers. Modi also called upon farmers to adopt bee-keeping and bring in a “sweet revolution”.
“The government hopes that on the lines of White Revolution and Green Revolution, we must work towards sweet revolution by way of manufacture of honey. If a small farmer has 50 bees, he can earn Rs 2 lakh every year,” he added.