AHMEDABAD: The Union government has allocated Rs 6,000 crore for construction of cold storage chains in the country. The Centre has decided to construct 500 cold storage chains across India.Union minister of agriculture Radha Mohan Singh, who was in Gandhinagar to attend the Textile India-2017 exhibition told TOI that these cold storage chains would be useful in helping farmers get better price for the produce and thereby increase their income.Regarding Gujarat farmers demanding a minimum support price for potato, tomato and onions, Singh said that the country already has a list of crops for which minimum support price has been announced. “But currently there is no plan to upgrade the list or include vegetables in this list,” Singh said.When told that farmers in Gujarat were throwing their produce away because of low support prices, Singh said that they should use cold storage facilities.Speaking at the seminar on ‘Productivity and Product Diversification Challenges for Natural Fibres,’ Singh said that natural fibres are the backbone of Indian textile industry. He said that despite stiff competition from synthetic fibres, the demand for natural fibres was steadily increasing with a growing population.The minister further said that given the limitation in increasing area under cultivation, the only way to improve production is increasing productivity. He said that introduction of high-yielding varieties, best agronomical practices, efficient fibre extractors and effective utilization for diversified products will improve productivity. Cotton is produced in over 90 countries across the world, and over 60% of that production comes from India, Singh said.Union textile minister Smriti Irani said the textile ministry and agriculture ministry have decided that the two ministries will have a regular exchange of information, knowledge and feedback on best practices . She said textiles is one of India’s leading industries and has the potential to generate employment for millions of people throughout the country. The knowledge sharing will be in local languages so that farmers get the information and are not left out because the information was not a language they did not understand.