Dedicated clusters for ‘One District, One Product’ scheme: Shobha Karandlaje

Dedicated clusters will come up in each district under the ‘One District, One Product’ initiative of the Centre, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Shobha Karandlaje said on Friday.

The clusters will have all facilities to process, market, store and export the produce.

Speaking at a media briefing, she said that the clusters are part of the Centre’s initiative to double farmers income. “Our focus in the coming days is export-oriented agriculture,” she said. In order to improve the quality of the produce, research and development facilities of central and state agriculture universities will be brought under one roof.

The Centre is pushing to set up 10,000 Farmers’ Produce Organisations (FPOs) across the country. In Karnataka, 750 such FPOs will come up by next year, she said.

On whether the Centre will heed to the demands of the farmers who have continued their protest demanding the government to withdraw the contentious farm laws, Shobha said there was no question of withdrawal.