Patna: Linking MGNREGA with agriculture would serve the twin purposes of bringing diversification in farming and increasing farmer's income, agri experts said on Saturday.

"Agriculture-related activities under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGA) and labour can benefit farmers by reducing cost of cultivation while fencing of farms would protect them from wild animals," deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi said. "It will also increase the speed of scheme and farmer's income in Bihar.

Sushil was addressing a regional workshop on policy approach for co-ordination between the agriculture sector and MGNREGA at Bihar Agriculture Management and Extension Training Institute in Patna to discuss about linking activities under MGNREGA with agriculture to raise farmer's income as per Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of contributing to farmer's income by 2022.

Modi said MGNREGA is a rural employment scheme while various activities under it, such as pond construction, afforestation, vermicomposting, creation of storage facilities and animal shelter are linked to agriculture.

The scheme's further integration with agriculture would reduce cost of cultivation, a big issue for farmers in Bihar where over 97 per cent of those engaged in agriculture are small and marginal farmers as the average landholding is 0.64 hectares.

"The Centre in Union Budget 2018-19 provided Rs 55,000 crore for MGNREGA and Bihar government also provisioned over Rs 2,000 crore under the scheme which can be used for increasing farmer's income," Sushil said.

The five regional workshops in New Delhi, Hyderabad, Guwahati, Bhopal and the last one in Patna on identifying activities under MGNREGA to be linked with agriculture were held after Prime Minister Narendra Modi formed a high-power panel of chief ministers to recommend ways on further integration of MGNREGA with agriculture in order to boost farmer's income. The committee headed by Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan will suggest on incentivizing agriculture by linking MGNREGA activities with farming.

Attending a NITI Ayog meet last month, chief minister Nitish Kumar, a member of the high-powered committee, suggested using labour activities under MGNREGA from pre-sowing to harvesting in agriculture to reduce costs and raise farmer's income.

Agriculture minister Prem Kumar said: "Over 90% people engaged in agriculture are small and marginal farmers. High cost of cultivation is a big concern. If we use MGNREGA labour in agriculture it will reduce costs and provide jobs to rural people."

"The objective of the regional workshops is to identify activities under MGNREGA for increasing productivity in agriculture and farmer's income while increasing the working days under the scheme at the same time. A sub-committee for the purpose would collect all the suggestions documented after five workshops and submit its report to NITI Ayog for decision making," Niti Ayog member Prof Ramesh Chand said.

Principal secretary, Government of India, S.K. Patnaik said that out of 360 activities under MGNREGA, 130 were associated with agriculture which could bringing diversification in agriculture. "Fisheries, vermi-composting and water conservation activities would increase profitability in agriculture," he said.