KTR stresses on need for improving productivity, profitability in agriculture sector
The IT Minister said there was no bigger innovator than the farmer and innovation was no one's property
Hyderabad: IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao emphasised the need to improve productivity and profitability of agriculture sector as production has increased significantly. He also stated that food security is no more a challenge for India, but nutritional security is and stated that since the Covid pandemic, people were more inclined towards consuming nutritional food.
Rama Rao along with Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy and School Education Minister P Sabitha Indra Reddy inaugurated the AgHub – Agricultural Innovation Hub established at Prof Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University here on Monday.
The IT Minister said there was no bigger innovator than the farmer and innovation was no one’s property. He urged the University authorities to keep the doors of the AgHub open for all especially farmers and rural innovators to provide them a platform to showcase their inventions for the benefit of scores of their fellow farmers. He also appealed to them to set up sign boards in Telugu for benefit for farmers who could not read English. He also emphasised the need for more research in the agriculture sector in the State.
Addressing the gathering, Rama Rao said production, productivity and profitability were the most important things for a farmer and while the production has increased in the last few years, it was time for all to focus on improving productivity and profitability. He said the State government was making lot of interventions in agriculture sector on which nearly 60 per cent of the nation’s population was depending upon, by providing free and uninterrupted power supply, interest-free crop loans, subsidised fertilisers and seeds and also farm input assistance of Rs 10,000 per acre per year under Rythu Bandhu scheme.
“The State government is also a leader in paddy procurement and purchased entire paddy produce from farmers during Covid pandemic. It has increased the godown capacity from 4 lakh tonnes to 26 lakh tonnes. The Chief Minister and the Agriculture Minister are now focusing on increasing it further,” he said. He stated that the BJP government at the Centre has confined itself to sloganeering and could not double the income of farmers by 2020 as it had promised during 2014. However, he stated that the Telangana government made a progress in this direction and was now home to four revolutions – second green revolution (agriculture), blue revolution (aquaculture), pink revolution (meat) and white revolution (milk).
Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy, P Sabitha Indra Reddy, NABARD Chairman Chintala Govinda Rajulu, MP G Ranjit Reddy and several other MLAs and officials were present.
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