Rise above politics, encourage farmers for crop diversification: Agri Minister urges

Hyderabad: Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy urged all the political parties in the State to rise above politics and encourage farmers to take up cultivation of alternate crops through crop diversification as a social responsibility. He cautioned that cultivation of the same crop for a long period will increase the salinity of the soil and […]

Hyderabad: Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy urged all the political parties in the State to rise above politics and encourage farmers to take up cultivation of alternate crops through crop diversification as a social responsibility. He cautioned that cultivation of the same crop for a long period will increase the salinity of the soil and thus, reduce the crop yield significantly.

Participating in the discussion on budget demands on agriculture on Friday, the Minister said due to the vision and planning of Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, the agriculture sector in Telangana made rapid strides recording 29 per cent growth this fiscal against 4 per cent in 2014. While cultivation area has increased from 1.34 crore acres to 2.15 crore acres during the period recording 61 per cent increase, the crop production increased from 1.54 crore tonnes to 3.4 crore tonnes. Similarly, the paddy production jumped by 220 per cent and cotton production shot up by 64 per cent during the same period.

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“But to sustain similar growth, we must educate our farmers and promote crop diversification aggressively. Otherwise, we might face challenges similar to Andhra Pradesh where paddy yield has reduced significantly, due to excess cultivation of the same crop for decades,” he asserted.

Niranjan Reddy slammed the Centre for its divisive politics with an eye on elections, rather than taking initiatives that are beneficial for the development of the country. “The Centre lacks progressive thinking, otherwise it should have taken the initiative to promote crop diversification and also encourage food processing industries rather than refusing to procure paddy from Telangana,” he added.

In response to the issues raised by the legislators, the Minister said there was a severe shortage of sunflower seeds during the previous season in the country and the State government was making efforts to import them from next season to supply them to farmers. He assured to prosecute the companies which supply faulty seeds to farmers in the State.

He informed that the proposed chilli research centre in Warangal rural constituency will be established soon after identification of necessary land. He assured to examine the feasibility of recognising certain polytechnic course as an eligibility to pursue graduation in agriculture. Work is in progress for reorganisation of agricultural clusters in the State and the officials were working on rationalisation of clusters as per directions from Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao.

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