Date:02/03/2007 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/03/02/stories/2007030202292100.htm

Back `No profitable prices for farmers'

Our Bureau

Coimbatore, March 1

Though the Union Budget spoke at length on agriculture, it has failed to spell out specific measures to ensure profitable prices for the farmers' produce which would insulate them against crop failures in subsequent season, according to Authur based-United Farmers Union.

What the farmers needed was not the subsidy on fertilisers but `profitable' price for their produce but the budget is silent on encouraging additional income generation to the farmers, the President of the United Farmers Union, Mr Vyapuri, said. He said the budget has ignored animal husbandry which gives sustenance to agriculture.

Too much emphasis on private-public partnership in seed research may promote `unholy' nexus between private seed trade and farm scientists employed in State-funded institutions, he added.