AP Govt to Create Awareness Among Farmers on Cultivation of Alternative Crops

Amaravati: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy held a review meeting on Agriculture and other allied sectors and directed the officials to create awareness among farmers on cultivation of alternative crops instead of paddy under bores and provide appropriate support to the cultivators of alternative crops. 

During the review meeting held at camp office here on Monday, the Chief Minister directed the official to ensure better income to farmers through alternative crops and said to provide incentives for cultivation of millets. He instructed the officials to constitute millets board and setup processing units where the cultivation of millets is more and added to provide incentives to natural farming. He said awareness should be created among farmers on organic and nature farming and added that organic methods should be promoted as an alternative to chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

The Chief Minister said organic farming should be given priority taking RBKs as a unit and equipment required for organic farming should also be kept in Custom Hiring Centres (CHCs) being set up under RBKs. He said the equipment, pesticides and organic fertilizer manufacturing industries required for organic farming should be encouraged and added to provide organic farming certification through RBKs. The officials informed the Chief Minister that 45,35,102 farmers have registered 1.12 crore acres of crop through e cropping.  

The Chief Minister said strict action would be taken against sale of fake or adulterated seeds, pesticides and fertilizers and two years imprisonment would be imposed against the responsible. He said amendments will be made in the act in this regard and an ordinance would be released if needed. He said RBKs were set up with good intention to provide quality seeds, fertilizers and pesticides to the farmers and any violators won’t be tolerated and added that if employees are involved in it, they will be dismissed immediately and legal action would be taken. He instructed the officials to ensure adequate supply of seeds as per the demand. 

The Chief Minister said the equipment to be provided to the farmers should be made available in CHCs rationally based on the number of farmers, the land being cultivated and the crops and mapping should be done on it. He said Organic feed should be made available for livestock and directed the officials to focus on marketing of organic milk and processing of organic products and added to take measures to set up one processing unit in each district. The officials informed the Chief Minister that so far 1,77,364 women were benefitted through Palavelluva programme. They said the average daily milk production was 2,812 liters in November 2020 and it was 71,911 liters in November, 2021 and added that 1.32 crore liters of milk was procured till date.

Agriculture Minister Kurasala Kannababu, Animal Husbandry and Dairy Development Minister Seediri Appalraju, AP Agri Mission Vice Chairman MVS Nagi Reddy, Agriculture Advisor Ambati Krishna Reddy, Agriculture Sepcial Chief Secretary Poonam Malakondaiah, Agriculture and Cooperative Principal Secretary Y Madhusudan Reddy, Food Processing Unit M K Meena, Finance Secretary N Gulzar, Agriculture and Marketing MD PS Pradyumna, Fisheries Commissioner K Kannababu, APDDCF director A Babu, Agriculture Commissioner H Arun Kumar and other officials were present.