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Mumbai, Nov 9: The four-day, Agro-Advantage Maharashtra came to an end on Monday. But for a few foreign participants, representations from major agricultural countries like the US, UK and Australia were absent.
There were complaints that the state bureaucracy did not create an ambience for these countries to participate despite representations made by a few trade associations.
The British Deputy High Commission's office-bearers have been vocal about the `cold' attitude of the state government officials. They were keen to participate and perhaps the Indian farmers could have benefited if they were let to.
The state agriculture minister, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil told The Financial Express that there was some confusion as far as UK was concerned. ``They wanted to send a few speakers but it was too late to respond,'' the minister said.
``But this is our first attempt to create an awareness where we have addressed the issue of producers, and we can look forward to many more occasions and get morecountries involved,'' Vikhe-Patil said.
The minister said the only constraint is availability of land on contract. These issues too will be sorted out. ``The time is ripe for capital investments in infrastructure, storage facilities and value addition among others,'' the minister said.
``We have no storage facilities and the country's annual wastage, of all agro produce, is 40 per cent of the total production,'' the minister said.The state develops varieties of crop but ``we have never addressed the issue of the farmers (producers) now we want to give them access to information so that the farmer can reduce the dependence on middlemen.''
By providing information, the farmers can compete with global players.On the recent rains in the country that has damaged crops and pushed up prices beyond the common man's reach, the minister admitted that the authorities were caught unawares and advanced information on weather was just not there to take precautionary measures.
The minister attributed the recentheavy rains in the country to global warming.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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