Badal for five-year plan to boost crop diversification

Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday stressed the need to prepare a comprehensive five-year agricultural perspective to give a push to much-needed crop diversification in the state.

Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday stressed the need to prepare a comprehensive five-year agricultural perspective to give a push to much-needed crop diversification in the state.

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Presiding over a meeting regarding the two-day agriculture summit to be held in the first week of October here, Badal said the long-term agricultural plan should focus on a strategic approach and meticulous planning to achieve the goal of agriculture diversification, which was the need of the hour.

Asking officers to make optimum use of the platform of the agriculture summit to sensitise the peasantry about the importance of diversification, he expressed concern over the depleting water table and consequent manifold increase in power consumption in the agriculture sector.

Badal asked the departments of agriculture and soil conservation to jointly prepare schemes/programmes on the basis of less water-consuming crops with assured marketing support.