Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Minister K V Thomas has called for greater public and private investment in the agricultural sector to increase productivity.

Addressing the Agricultural Leadership Summit in New Delhi today, Mr. Thomas said that increasing productivity is the key challenge for ensuring national food security. The Minister said that investment is specially required in the eastern and north-eastern regions, which have a huge potential for the agriculture sector.

Mr. Thomas said that a sound mechanism should be developed to link farmers to markets which is a pre-requisite for augmenting farm production and farmers’ income. He said that increasing farm income is necessary to check the widening rural-urban disparity and to diversify rural livelihood options.