Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, calls upon the participants at the National Krishi Vigyan Kendra Conference, 2005, to come up with new strategies to ensure food security and an agricultural growth rate of 4%. Inaugurating the 2-day Conference in New Delhi on 27th October, 2005, the Prime Minister said that India needs to usher in the second Green Revolution.

Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, calls upon the participants at the National Krishi Vigyan Kendra Conference, 2005, to come up with new strategies to ensure food security and an agricultural growth rate of 4%. Inaugurating the 2-day Conference in New Delhi on 27th October, 2005, the Prime Minister said that India needs to usher in the second Green Revolution. For this, we need to find farm-specific, crop-specific, resource-specific and region-specific solutions as quickly as possible. The Prime Minister said that what is required is a need to move from a ‘crop based approach’ to a ‘farm management based approach’, with improved practices, extension facilities and marketing to enhance productivity in agriculture. He called upon the extension services to utilize the new IT and communications tools to cut across physical barriers between farmers and researchers.


While delivering the keynote address, the Union Minister for Agriculture, Shri Sharad Pawar said the Government is actively considering the sanction of one Krishi Vigyan Kendra in each of the newly created districts as well, during the X Plan itself. This will additionally benefit States like Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. He informed that 492 KVKs have already been sanctioned.


Shri Sharad Pawar said that the KVK aims at technology assessment, refinement, demonstration and its dissemination through training of farmers and extension personnel. During the last three years (2002-03 to 2004-05), the KVKs conducted on-farm trials on 1236 technologies in order to identify their location specificity under various farming situations and a large number of frontline demonstrations. They organized more than 82,000 training programmes benefiting about 19 lakh farmers and extension personnel. In order to speed up the process of dissemination of technology, 18,609 tonnes of seeds and over 95 lakh planting material were produced by the KVKs and made available to farmers.


The Minister stressed that agricultural diversification is the key issue today. New market demands for organic-farmed products and pharma-foods have provided new opportunities for high value agriculture. Diverse and favourable agro-climatic conditions of the country provide a comparative advantage and competitive edge over others in these areas.

Shri Pawar pointed out that the role of an extension worker is no longer simply that of an information provider but it has to be viewed within the increasingly complex context of market, social and environmental demands. The information, advice and other services offered by the KVKs need to be tailored to the needs and aspirations of the farmers. Knowledge has become perhaps the most important factor determining the pace of agricultural development in the country. The Ministry is also considering involving the KVKs in the implementation of the National Horticulture Mission.

As all the rural districts of the country are going to have a KVK by 2007, there is a need for further decentralized monitoring. He announced that the ICAR has decided to assign additional responsibilities to the Directors of Extension Education for coordination and providing technical inputs to all the KVKs under the jurisdiction of the State Agriculture University. Details on necessary financial and administrative back-stopping to ground this decentralized and University empowered system of KVK are being put in place.


In order to fulfill a long standing need, the Minister announced that It has been decided to provide a Farmers’ Hostel at the main campus of all the Agricultural Universities


Shri Sharad Pawar reminded the participants that the National Conference on Krishi Vigyan Kendra has been specially designed to take a stock of the readily transferable technologies in a holistic systems perspective for overall improvement in the social and economic well being of the farming community.


Earlier in the day Shri Sharad Pawar inaugurated the Krishi Vistar Sadan. Speaking on the occasion, he said that the NATP Project assisted by World Bank has not only contributed to the addition of infrastructure through this building but has also given us the ATMA Model of Extension Reforms at the level of Districts. Seeing the positive results of the programme taken up in 28 Districts over last 5-6 years, the Ministry of Agriculture has decided to set up ATMAs and launch State Agricultural Extension Reforms in more than 250 Districts of the country this year. These reforms must make extension system need-based and accountable to the farmers.

Full text of Prime Minister’s speech