Replying to a late night marathon debate on farmers problems, agriculture minister Nitish Kumar told the Lok Sabha that there was no need to treat agriculture as an industry as the new policy would take care of all aspects including provision of credit cards besides reviewing the farmers problems since independence.

Kumar said the agriculture ministry had directed all quarantine centres in the country not to allow terminator genes through intensified checks besides ensuring non-registration of the terminator seed companies in deference to the protests world over.

The government he said that it was keen that the future food grains requirements could be met through increase in production and productivity by bringing more area into agriculture and using integrated pest management practices and post-harvest technologies. The country was required to double its production within the next one decade with an emphasis on 4 per cent growth rate.

On the other hand, the government had formulated a novel scheme of capital investment to enhance the cold storage facility of horticultural products to 12 lakh tonnes from the existing 8 lakh tonnes besides generating 4 lakh tonne capacity for onions.

Lack of post-harvest management had been resulting in wastage of 5 to 10 per cent of food products and 25 to 30 per cent horticulture products and hence the decision, he said.

The new crop insurance scheme with village or gram panchayat as a unit available for both the loanees and non-loanees availed by nine states would be reviewed next year and suitable measures to strengthen it would be initiated to benefit more farmers, Kumar said.

With blue and green revolution successful, the government, he said was contemplating to launch yellow revolution followed by the rainbow revolution covering all farm products in the country.

A meeting with the representatives of the European Economic Commission would be held soon to ensure that reclamation of alkaline soils in Bihar would be continued though the commission had recommended its closure following financial and technical irregularities in Bihar. Similar was the situation regarding rural electrification schemes in the state, Kumar added. Others who participated in the debate included Arun Kumar (JD-U), Sunderlal Tiwary (INC), Tirlochan Singh Toor (Akalidal), Anil Basu (CPM) and Ramdas Athalwal (RPI).

Severfal of them pleaded for continued power supply and irrigation facilities besides remunerative prices.