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 cluster is against TS policy'

Selection of Adilabad under Micro- small enterprises cluster development programme (MSE- CDP) for the cotton industrial cluster by the Central government will go against the state government policy to encourage alternative crops and traditional crops in place of commercial crops to prevent farmer suicides in Telangana.

The state government is discouraging the cultivation of cotton while encouraging traditional crops and also organic farming.

As part of the cotton industrial cluster, small-scale cotton ginning factories will be established at mandal and even at GP level. It was established fact that cotton farmers were in the majority of the farmers who committed suicide in the Adilabad district.

The Central government is establishing various clusters based on local crops and available deposits of minerals and materials in five districts that are Granite industries in Karimnagar and Khammam, cotton ginning industries in Adilabad, rice mills in Nizamabad and Nalgonda in the state.

The Central government will give Rs 25 crore for the development of cotton industrial clusters every year in the district.       

The poor MSP and exploitation by the cotton traders, spurious seeds and increased investment costs and successive drought and failure of borewells and mounted debts and super officials institutional loaning forced the farmers to take extreme steps.

Rythu Athma Hatyala Nivarana Committee district convenor Sangepu Borranna said a majority of the farmers’ suicides were cotton farmers and it is high time to shift them to other traditional crops.   

Agriculture Minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy during his recent visit to Tamsi mandal reiterated that there was a need to shift in the cropping pattern and farmers should go for traditional crops like Jowar, Maize and vegetable instead commercial crop cotton.

He observed that cost of cultivation was increased many folds in cotton cultivation and this has become an additional burden on farmers. He also stressed upon the need for organic farming to get remunerative prices to the crops.        

State to promote organic farming

Minister for agriculture Pocharam Srinivas Reddy said state government will promote organic farming on big scale to reduce the investment cost and achieve good yields and prevent the farmers falling into debt traps and from committing suicides.

He said they will promote organic farming in 15,000 acres with Rs 21 crore in the first phase this year in the state with the funds provided state and central government under the ‘Paramparagath Krishi Vikasa Yojana’ being implemented by the Central government.

Mr Pocharam Srinivas Reddy was speaking at a meeting organized for distribution of soil health cards to the farmers at Indravelli. He said the progamme will be implemented in 300 clusters in all the mandals and 50 acre in each cluster in the state.

Organic farming would be taken up in 1,600 acres in 34 clusters and meetings with the farmers will be conducted in all the districts to educate the importance of the organic farming while stressing need for reducing use of chemicals in the Agriculture.

Minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy promised to send the Poland based company to Adilabad to establish tomato processing unit here as the company was interested in establishing in food processing units in the state.

The Minister said farmers will get minimum support price to their tomato crop and they will get profits if they the company busy the crop from them. Minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy inaugurated the cage culture under which fishes will be raised in special methods at Kadam project.