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Bill Gates bats for farming boost
Microsoft founder Bill Gates exhorted the gathering of farmers, policy makers, scientists, bureaucrats, entrepreneurs and students to work for transformation of agriculture. “I am referring to a shift – from agriculture based merely on subsistence – to agriculture that is run like a business to be efficient and profitable and that meets the needs of producers and consumers,” Bill Gates said while
Visakhapatnam: Microsoft founder Bill Gates exhorted the gathering of farmers, policy makers, scientists, bureaucrats, entrepreneurs and students to work for transformation of agriculture. “I am referring to a shift – from agriculture based merely on subsistence – to agriculture that is run like a business to be efficient and profitable and that meets the needs of producers and consumers,” Bill Gates said while delivering his keynote address at the valedictory event of AP Agri Tech Summit-2017 in Visakhapatnam on Friday.
The three-day summit was organised by Andhra Pradesh government in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and Dalberg by bringing a cross section of stake holders in agriculture including scientists, farmers, policy makers, industries and technocrats. Heaping praises on AP government for taking initiative to set up Mega Seed Park at Kurnool and for coming up with new e-seed distribution app D-Krishi, Bill Gates said these were the kind of innovations that will help achieve the Chief Minister’s goal of sustained, double-digit growth in AP over the next decade.
Explaining that if efforts are stepped up to bring small and marginal farmers out of debt traps, Bill Gates underscored that it would turn the largest economic sector of India into a dynamic source of growth. By making sure that this growth is inclusive, it will help produce enough nutritious food to support a healthy and well-educated labour force for future, he noted.
“To catalyse this chain reaction, we have to focus on increasing the productivity of smallholder farms and farmers and connecting them to markets so that they can prosper from their hard work,” he added. Making note of AP’s soil health card system has been taking long time to produce the cards, he said African Soil Information Service (AFSIS) model should be followed for better results.
Before Gates delivered his keynote address, Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu requested Bill Gates to collaborate with the Andhra Pradesh government on three areas - agriculture, health and nutrition and sanitation – for bringing a radical change and setting the state as model for all developing nations.The Chief Minister said that in total 259 ideas have come to the fore in the three-day AP Agri Tech Summit
