Odisha’s Samrudhi

Why in News?

The Odisha government launched its new State Agricultural Policy (SAP) 2020-SAMRUDHI that focuses on profitability for farmers.

What is Samrudhi?

• Samrudhi is focused on the social and economic well-being of farmers, sharecroppers and landless agriculture households.
• It aims to actualise the untapped potential of agriculture, while ensuring growth process is environmentally, economically and technologically inclusive.
• It is based on an 8-pillar strategy focused on simultaneous reforms.

What is the 8-pillar strategy?

• The policy lays emphasis on diversification, market linkages and use of technology.
• It suggests mechanisms to orient governance reforms towards farmer-centricity, which is in alignment with its flagship programmes.
• It recommends the creation of agriculture production clusters.
• It paves the way for the creation of an agro-ecological map, which will help in identify an ideal cropping pattern.
• The policy also suggests that these clusters should be linked to the market aggressively by removing all the existing barriers.
• Innovative market reforms like the eNAM portal, Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAM), creation of market information system for disseminating current and forecasted prices have been laid down.
• Special focus has been given to the adoption of model acts like the Model Contract Farming Act, etc, with suitable changes necessary for its implementation in Odisha.
• The policy also emphasises development of warehousing and quality testing infrastructure for better marketing of the crops.
• The agriculture policy pushes for widespread usage of new-age technology to increase the quality of farming and farm products.

What sectors does Samrudhi want to develop?

• It provides recommendations for developing the livestock and fisheries, as they have contributed the most to the growth of farmer incomes.
• For livestock, it includes elements like protection of animals from diseases, artificial insemination, conservation of indigenous species and encouraging the private sector to create value chains.
• For fisheries, the focus is on the promotion of inland fisheries and digitisation of Odisha’s assets like ponds and lakes.

How was Samrudhi formed?

• The process followed for the creation of Samrudhi has been participative with the involvement of various government departments, policy experts, NGOs working with Odisha.
• To create the policy, relevant data for the last 15 years was analysed and specific opportunity areas for policy interventions were identified.
• This policy is a time-bound, action-oriented document that clearly lists outcome targets the state should achieve over the next five years.

Source: The Financial Express