Mana TS- Mana Vyavasayam to promote traditional crops

ITDA, Utnoor project officer R.V Karnan in Jowar fields 

The “Mana Telangana – Mana Vyavasayam” aimed to reduce the cotton cultivation and to promote alternative crops in the Telangana especially district like Adilabad.

The state government is going to recruit one Agriculture extension officer per  5,000 acres and will recruit 1,000 Agriculture extension officers from May.

The state government took the serious note of the huge loss in cotton cultivation and cotton farmers were more among the farmers committed suicide in the state.  

Training will be given to the selected farmers in cultivation of other crops like pulses, turmeric, sunflower, soya and vegetables.  

Minister for Forest and environment Jogu Ramanna said state government wanted to make the Agriculture profit- making, bring many changes and encourage organic farming on a big scale.

He said they were going to give top priority to the soil testing to improve the yield and they will introduce “Sanchara Boosara Parikshalu’ and farmers should avail the benefit of this mobile soil testing and cultivate crops according to their results of their soil.

From now onwards, Agriculture department will encourage traditional crops and rainfed crops like Jowar, maize, and sunflower instead cotton which is considered to be a water intensive crop.

The steep fall in the ground water table and prevailing successive drought conditions and low prices to the cotton in the international markets forced the state government to come out with an alternative action plan to tackle the agriculture crisis.

Cotton picking begins early

Commercial operations of cotton will start 20 days in advance first time in the Telangana state after 10 years, in the wake of early cotton picking and arrivals of cotton produce this Kharif. Commercial operations of cotton in the state may begin before September 25 this season, instead of the usual October 20.

Farmer leaders say there has been good growth of cotton plants this season in the Adilabad district due to timely rains and farmers in few villages have even started picking cotton, plants of which were sown during pre-monsoon or earlier.  

Farmer’s leader B. Goverdhan Reddy said marketing minister T. Harish Rao recently asked the marketing and CCI officials in a meeting to advance the cotton purchases 20 days. Seven new cotton purchasing centres, including Gudihatnoor of Adialabad would be set up for that season.

Rangineni Satishrao, big farmer of Guda village in Jainad mandal, said few farmers who sowed cotton during pre-monsoon period or earlier have already started picking cotton in their fields in Lingi and Kuchulapur villages in Talamadugu mandal and will incur loss if there is any delay in cotton purchases as the cotton purchases as the cotton might get discolored and get damp due to the humid weather.

Commercial operations of cotton are being advanced for 20 days forest time in the last 10 years. It happened previously in 2003-04 and 1996-97, he reminded. The cotton crop ripes in 90-100 days and the early operations will help farmers harvest cotton early. 

He said the conditions for growing cotton were good in Adilabad district but situation was different in Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Warangal.

Adilabad district officials have decided to convene a meeting with leaders of farmers, owners of ginning and pressing factories and CCI officials on September 6 to take the stock of the situation and preparations done to start commercial operation of cotton.

Minister Jogu Ramanna said Transco officials will be directed to supply power  to the cotton ginning and pressing factories from much earlier instead October 23 every year to start the commercial operation .

LAN weighing machines at Adilabad market

The state government is for the first time setting up LAN weighing machines system at Adilabad market yard for the benefit of the farmers for easy unloading of their cotton produce.

Nearly 10 CCTV Cameras will be set up at weighing machines and at in and out entrance points for transparency and to avoid malpractices in the weighting cotton produce brought by the farmers.

There will be no need of weighting the only vehicle after unloading the cotton produce on the same weighing machines.           

Good growth of cotton, soya brings cheer to farmers

After a gap of thee years, cotton and soya farmers are elated over good growth of the plants due to timely rains and they are expecting good yield this season unlike like last three seasons.

But, the cultivation area has come down when compared to expected area due to huge delay in monsoon. Rain fed crops got sufficient rainfall in Kharif but paddy suffered a lot.     

Farmers say that the timely rains saved their crops otherwise the situation would be worst, as they had lost three successive seasons due to drought conditions and incurred huge loss.

Cotton farmers were busy in operations of weeding and spraying chemicals to the plants. On the other hand, farmers did not get institutional financial support this season and not much benefit out of crop loan wavier by the state government.

At many places, bankers did not give crop loan to the tenant farmers as usual this season also despite having eligibility certificates issued to the tenant farmers by the state government.

Meanwhile, paddy cultivation has begun little late waiting for rains and gradually picked up the paddy operations across the district.

There was a lot of confusion in disbursement of fresh crop loans to the farmers by the bankers and no authority was ready to clear the doubts raised on crop loans and crop loan waiver and charging interest by the farmers. 

Various crops were cultivated only in 5.10 lakh hectors against the expected area 5.70 lakh hectares in the district in Kharif. Cotton was sown in 3.15 lakh hectares against 3.50 lalkh hectares and Soya in 93,000 hectares against 1.25 lakh hectare and paddy in 14,000 hectares against he expected 56,000 hectares while Redgram in 46,000 hectares where as the expected area was just 42,000 hectares in the district.

According to official sources out of total 52 mandals, 14 mandals were facing deficit rainfall , 19 mandals received excess rainfall and Jannaram, Madamarri and  Kasipet mandals were facing scanty rainfall. There was 20 percent deficit of rainfall as only 596.2 mm rain fall received against the 743.4 mm rainfall by this time in the district.      

Farmer J. Dashrath of Ichoda expressed happiness over growth the cotton plants due to timely rains unlike in the last three seasons and hoped that they would get good yield this time.

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