Navneet Ravikar, chairman & managing director, Leads Connect Services said “Apart from abolishing the GST or mandi tax on agricultural produce brought by FPOs, the universal crop insurance scheme should be launched with a 100% subsidy on premium for marginal farmers with landholding below two hectares. Crop insurance third-party loss assessors association should be formed for technology-based yield estimation and localized claims assessment for timely and equitable claim settlement under PMFBY. “
The grants and subsidies under various schemes for drones should be extended to agritech, agrifintech, and private research organizations who are working in the field of agriculture, he added.
Aneesh Jain, Founder of Gram Unnati said “Farmers need to adopt new crops & technologies which have the potential to drastically improve yields and returns. Some incentives or schemes for setting up demonstrations will go a great distance in promoting new crops & technology adoption by farmers. These demonstrations should however be conducted in concentrated clusters at a village or gram panchayat level to enable sufficient production in one place otherwise market linkages might become a challenge.
It might also be useful to incentivize the use of modern and innovative crop nutrition solutions. Schemes in this direction will reduce farmers’ dependency on Urea and DAP.
Lastly, to support the integration of FPOs and agri-tech companies in the agricultural supply chains, Credit Guarantees for Working Capital lines could be explored. These will enable timely payments to farmers and efficient linkages with markets, especially by FPOs, Jain said.