Exhorting the farmers to take up natural farming, Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah said that organic products from natural farming can become instrumental in opening a global market worth Rs 10 lakh crore for India.
Shah said this on Tuesday while inaugurating a cattle feed plant of Sabar Dairy in Sabarkantha district’s Himmatnagar.
Addressing a public meeting on the occasion, he called upon the farmers, especially the women farmers, to opt for natural farming. He urged the women farmers to try this natural farming on a small scale before expanding further after getting success.
Remembering Tribhuvandas Patel, regarded as the pioneer of the cooperative movement in India, Shah said, “I can tell you with confidence that when Tribhuvan Kaka started the cooperative movement in dairy, nobody knew that an empire worth Rs 600,00 crore of Amul was coming up. In natural farming, in the beginning, this experiment may sound redundant, but I tell you that it (can be) instrumental in opening a Rs 10 lakh crore global market for the Indian farmers…”
Tribhuvandas Patel had started the Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers’ Union in 1946, which served as a foundation for the ‘Amul’ brand of dairy products. Shah also advocated the need to include natural farming in training of farmers by the dairies.
The Union minister also hailed the cooperative movement for increasing per capita milk production in the country. He said that in 1970, India’s per capita milk production was 40 grams which increased to 167 grams in 2023 — higher than the global average of 117 grams.
“Among all the countries in the world, maximum per capita milk production is in India and cooperative movement has played a big role in it,” Shah said.
Shah also inaugurated a renovated lake in Shela village of Ahmedabad.
Earlier in the day, the Union minister inaugurated a philately exhibition organised by Gandhinagar Postal Division at Dandi Kutir near Mahatma Mandir.
