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``It is very essential to explain to the State administrators that by bringing about a change in agricultural policies we can really transform our rural and agrarian economy,'' the FICCI President, Mr R.S. Lodha, said here today.

NEW DELHI, Dec. 11

TO attain a higher trajectory growth of more than four per cent in agriculture and compete in the global market, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) task force on agriculture feels that there is a need to address the conflicting domestic policies relating to production, procurement, pricing and distribution, rising minimum support prices, ineffective subsidy system, regulated domestic markets and lack of infrastructure facilities, to name a few.

FICCI has decided to address States for carrying out grassroot-level reforms. ``It is very essential to explain to the State administrators that by bringing about a change in agricultural policies we can really transform our rural and agrarian economy,'' the FICCI President, Mr R.S. Lodha, said here today.

In view of the strategic and economic importance of agriculture in the Indian economy, FICCI had constituted in January 2002, under the chairmanship of Mr P.M. Sinha, a task force on agriculture. The task force decided that its scope would be `Indian agriculture unbound: Making Indian agriculture globally competitive'.

The objective of the task force was to identify major bottlenecks that hinder the growth of Indian agriculture, identify its competitiveness in the global market and suggest a policy framework that would rejuvenate it.

Mr Lodha said initially 3-4 States would be targeted after implementing a pilot in one State and local chambers would be engaged to build a consensus in favour of removing bottlenecks hindering the growth of agriculture.

The task force has asked Government to scrap Essential Commodities Act, make mandatory the recommendations of the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP) and encourage substantial private investment in food procurement, storage and marketing. Further, it has also sought the creation of commodity exchanges and futures markets to enable the farmers to get assured returns and hedge against price fluctuations.

``Make warehouse receipts operative and negotiable to draw short-term private funding into agricultural products,'' the task force Chairman, Mr P.M. Sinha said, adding that adequate warehousing facility with tradeable warehouse receipts should be in place.

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