New Delhi, Oct 12 (IANS): Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Wednesday said while agriculture is the backbone of the country, there are some challenges before the sector, adding there is a need to work in this direction to transform agriculture into advanced farming.

The Minister said that technology should be used in agriculture and its continuity be maintained.

Tomar in his virtual address to the National Conference on Enhancing Agricultural Productivity on the topic "Integration of Improved Seeds and Agri Inputs" said that the stronger and more profitable the Agriculture sector is, the stronger the country will be.

"There is a need to consider the challenges facing Agriculture today. In spite of all the favourable conditions, the area under farming and its profit and loss depend a lot on the nature. People's curiosity and attachment towards agriculture should increase, agriculture should be attractive for the next generation and farmers can be retained for farming, more work needs to be done in this direction," he said.

Tomar said that the government is working to reduce the gap between farmers and the market, providing infrastructure in rural areas and eliminating the role of middlemen. He said that the number of small farmers in the country is more, who have small acreage and do not have money for investment; for such farmers, the Central government is setting up 10,000 new FPOs, for which a provision of Rs 6,865 crore has been made and small farmers are being mobilised.

He said that it is the effort of the government that farmers should do group farming, so that the input costs can be reduced, production quality improves and small farmers can shift to remunerative crops and get the price for their produce on their own terms. FPOs can also process products. For this, the government has extended loans up to Rs 2 crore without guarantee.

Tomar said that the Central government is also working on the Digital Agriculture Mission, in which farmers, banks and other institutions will be linked, crop assessment made, data collected and crop losses will also be assessed with technology.

Mapping will be done in such a way that farmers across the country can be advised through the state governments as to where and which consumption is there, accordingly profit can be earned by producing as much needed.