National Policy for Farmers

The Government had constituted a National Commission on Farmers in 2004 under the chairmanship of Dr. M.S. Swaminathan. The Commission submitted its final report in 2006. Based on the recommendations made by the Commission, the “National Policy for Farmers, 2007” has been formulated and approved.

The goals of the policy are:

1. To improve economic viability of farming by substantially increasing the net income of farmers and to ensure that agricultural progress is measured by advances made in this income.
2. To protect and improve land, water, bio-diversity and genetic resources essential for sustained increase in the productivity, profitability and stability of major farming systems by creating an economic stake in conservation.
3. To develop support services including provision for seeds, irrigation, power, machinery and implements, fertilizers and credit at affordable prices in adequate quantity for farmers.
4. To strengthen the bio-security of crops, farm animals, fish and forest trees for safeguarding the livelihood and income security of farmer families and the health and trade security of the nation.
5. To provide appropriate price and trade policy mechanisms to enhance farmers’ income.
6. To provide for suitable risk management measures for adequate and timely compensation to farmers.
7. To complete the unfinished agenda in land reforms and to initiate comprehensive asset and aquarian reforms.
8. To mainstream the human and gender dimension in all farm policies and programmes.
9. To pay explicit attention to sustainable rural livelihoods.
10. To foster community-centred food, water and energy security systems in rural India and to ensure nutrition security at the level of every child, woman and man.
11. To introduce measures which can help attract and retain youths in farming and processing of farm products for higher value addition by making it intellectually stimulating and economically rewarding.
12. To make India a global outsourcing hub in the production and supply of the inputs needed for sustainable agriculture, products and processes developed through biotechnology and Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
13. To restructure the agricultural curriculum and pedagogic methodologies for enabling every farm and home science graduate to become an entrepreneur and to make agricultural education gender sensitive.
14. To develop and introduce a social security system for farmers.
15. To provide appropriate opportunities in adequate measure for the non-farm employment of the farm households.

For the purpose of this policy, the term “farmer” will refer to a person actively engaged in the economic and/or livelihood activity of growing crops and producing other primary agricultural commodities and will include all agricultural operational holders, cultivators, agricultural labourers, sharecroppers, tenants, poultry and livestock rearers, fishers, beekeepers, gardeners, pastoralists, non-corporate planters and planting labourers, as well as persons engaged in various farming related occupations such as sericulture vermiculture, and agro-forestry. The term will also include tribal families/persons engaged in shifting cultivation and in the collection, use and sale of minor and nontimber forest produce.