Farmers have to cultivate crops other than paddy, says Gangula

Karimnagar: BC Welfare and Civil Supplies Minister Gangula Kamalakar on Sunday said farmers have to take the cultivation of crops other than paddy in the wake of the Union government’s decision not to procure common variety of paddy. The Minister was speaking at a meeting with farmers of Tahirkondapur of Karimnagar Rural mandal. Attributing the […]

Karimnagar: BC Welfare and Civil Supplies Minister Gangula Kamalakar on Sunday said farmers have to take the cultivation of crops other than paddy in the wake of the Union government’s decision not to procure common variety of paddy.

The Minister was speaking at a meeting with farmers of Tahirkondapur of Karimnagar Rural mandal. Attributing the adoption of other crops is mainly to the decision by Union Agriculture Ministry refusing procurement, Kamalakar advised the farmers to switch to other crops as an adaptation strategy.

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Speaking on the occasion, Kamalakar said according to the Constitution, it was the responsibility of the Union government to purchase the crops produced by farmers, storage, marketing and export.

Supplying uninterrupted power supply, adequate irrigation, crop investment support and other basic facilities were the duty of States. In Telangana, adequate water and 24-hour free electricity is being supplied to farmers with the initiatives taken by Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, he said.

However, the Union government was refusing to procure common paddy variety on the pretext that an excess amount of parboiled rice was available with the Centre. Stating that the farmers were going to face severe hardships with the Central government’s decision, he advised paddy peasants to switch to other crops.

Instead of common paddy variety, farmers have to cultivate other crops such as oil farm, groundnut, sunflower and commercial crops like cotton, millets and others.

With the pressure mounted on the Central government by the Chief Minister, FCI has agreed to procure the paddy of last Yasangi and the next coming Vanakalam season. However, FCI made it clear that it would not purchase boiled rice for the next Yasangi season.

The Minister sought an opinion from farmers whether they were ready to shift to other crops and fine varieties of paddy crop if they still wanted to continue paddy cultivation.

Giving a reply to the Minister, farmers said in the recent past, they were able to cultivate crops especially paddy in a perfect manner with the initiatives taken by the Chief Minister of the State and expressed concern over Union government decision.

Promising the farmers to take their opinion to the notice of Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, he told them to organise a meeting with agriculture officials, scientists and farmers.

Usually, paddy cultivated in Yasangi season would be broken. So, the government was taking steps to develop a new paddy variety that would not be broken in the Yasangi season, he informed and added that the farming community would be educated about crop switching. Later, Kamalakar inaugurated Gram Panchayat building at Tahirkondapur village.

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