Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, to ensure increase in agriculture output and double farmers' income by 2022, the focus should be on higher agriculture productivity especially in view of the limitation on expanding crop area.<br/><br/>He was speaking at the first pre-budget consultative meeting with the representatives of Agriculture Groups in New Delhi today.<br/><br/>Mr Jaitley said, productivity can be raised by leveraging technology especially for high yielding and resistant variety seeds, efficient utilization of water for irrigation, adapt latest technology to increase resilience to nature by phasing sowing, watering and harvesting.<br/><br/>He said, in order to increase the price benefits to the farmers, it is necessary that the farmers are provided timely market information. He also stressed on developing software applications, both computer and mobile based, that link farmers to consumers.<br/><br/>Mr Jaitley said, along with use of latest technology to raise productivity, there is also need to revisit the incentive structure of farming, to focus to reduce wastages and enhance earnings as well as to improve marketing of farm produce.<br/><br/>The Finance Minister said, for efficient implementation of the National Agriculture Market, there is need to integrate more than 550 regulated Mandis in the country by 2017 for which the States need to reform the Agricultural Produce Market Committee, APMC Act.<br/><br/>During the meeting, many suggestions were received from the representatives of different Agriculture Groups like urgent need to provide sufficient funds to District Cooperative Banks where most of the farmers have their bank accounts in view of demonetization, cargo hubs and dry ports should be encouraged in the production centre of agri-products.<br/><br/>Other suggestions included cold chain provision for horticulture and minor vegetables and higher allocation in budget for agriculture in the upcoming Budget. Senior officials of Finance and Agriculture Ministry and representatives of the different Agriculture Groups were present during the meeting.