The Kerala government is going to bring a bill to legalize the lease of agricultural land. Through this bill, the use of large-scale vacant land in the state will be promoted. Along with this, there will be more focus on bringing new agricultural startups in the state. The Kerala government is preparing it on the basis of the Farmers Rights Act-2019 of Andhra Pradesh.
The bill being brought by the Kerala government. After its arrival, farmers will be given facilities like bank loans and crop insurance. Along with this, mechanization in farming will be promoted.
According to officials, farming on lease will promote agricultural startups, which need large parts of land for high-tech and scientific farming. After the introduction of this bill, mechanization of agriculture will also be promoted. Eleven large parts of land are available for commercial farming.
This bill of Kerala is on the side of Andhra Pradesh
The bill that the Kerala government is going to bring. It will be prepared on the lines of the Tenant Farmer Bill of Andhra Pradesh. Which was passed in 2019 as the Andhra Pradesh Crop Farmers Rights Act.
What will change with the introduction of the bill?
Lease farming is a system in which land owners lease their land to people who do not own land. The terms of lease farming include that a lessee pays the land owner to cultivate the land for a period agreed between them.
According to sources, the state currently has 1,03,334 hectares of fallow land, of which 49,420 hectares is permanently fallow. The remaining 53,914 hectares of land is classified as ‘current fallow’ or land unused in recent times.
Farming will become easier
Many migrants in Kerala have left their lands fallow because they are unable to do farming. Older farmers are also finding it difficult to continue farming. Once the legal provisions for lease farming are implemented, such people will be willing to lease their land for cultivation while retaining ownership of the land.
Kerala is introducing a bill for lease farming, nine years after Niti Aayog released the Model Land Lease Act in 2016. It was aimed at providing a legal framework for lease farming. Subsequently, states like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Andhra Pradesh enacted lease farming laws.