President Pratibha Patil calls for agricultural growth

In her first public address after being elected president, Pratibha Patil has emphasised the need for new policy initiatives to boost agricultural growth.

"This is my first assignment after taking over as the President of India and the reason I am here is that everything can wait but not agriculture," the first woman president of India said.
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"It would be important to bear in mind that our agricultural strategies should not only be pro-poor and pro- nature but also pro-women," Patil said in her address on agriculture and food security.

It was essential to enlist the support of Panchayati Raj institutions and agricultural universities to empower farmers in both value added processing and marketing, she added.