Effort should be to lower farm input costs and increase productivity: Niranjan Reddy
Hyderabad: The farm sector is seeing the input costs rise. Effort should be made to lower these costs and increase productivity. Research should be taken up considering the dietary changes happening, said Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy. The Centre should look at ways to make villages stronger as this makes States and in turn the […]
Hyderabad: The farm sector is seeing the input costs rise. Effort should be made to lower these costs and increase productivity. Research should be taken up considering the dietary changes happening, said Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy.
The Centre should look at ways to make villages stronger as this makes States and in turn the country stronger. In the past eight years, no new irrigation project that can irrigate five to ten lakh acre has been taken up in the country apart from Telangana and to an extent Karnataka, he said.
Speaking at the Agri Tech South event held at Prof Jayashankar Telangana Agricultural University, he said though 70,000 tmc water was available in the country and about 40 crore acre under irrigation, the country has no policies or innovations that will make it self-sufficient in terms of food security, he added.
Farmers are the key to food security and farming should not be seen as a business activity. Instead of harnessing the physical and mental energies of people, debates happening across the country are just dividing people. This approach will be a curse to the new generation. The focus should be on using the available resources optimally. No plans are being made in this direction but the past is being dug to create confusion among people, he said adding that the people at the helm should take right decisions that will ensure the scientific knowledge is disseminated to all including to the farming community, he said.
Telangana agriculture production reached a point where agencies like the Food Corporation of India expressed helplessness to take all the produce from the State, he said adding that the Centre should evolve a strategy to handle agri produce from Telangana and other States. Efforts of people should not go waste, he said.
Telangana achieved the difficult task of bringing one crore acre under irrigation due to the vision of Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, who introduced path breaking schemes like Rythu Bandu and Rythu Bima apart from making irrigation water available and ensuring 24/7 power to the farm sector. No political party acknowledged the ripple impact the Telangana policies are creating. About Rs 50,000 crore has been credited directly to the farmers’ accounts in the past eight years. Rythu Bandhu has been recognised by the UN as one of the top 20 influencing schemes. The Chief Minister had infused new life into agriculture with these policies, he said.
Due to these interventions and policies, Telangana produced more than three crore MT paddy, which is a record production. The State is now the granary for the country. Agriculture accounts for about 21 per cent of the GSDP and is the largest employment generator. Youth should look up to agriculture and allied as new employment opportunities are arising instead of waiting only for government jobs, he added.
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