Telangana government will support civil society to contemplate a district-wise crop pattern plan in the favor of farmers: B. Vinod Kumar, Vice Chairman, Telangana State Planning Board
Hyderabad : Telangana government is contemplating to introduce an extensive crop diversification programme in a scientific manner with a view to increase the income of state farmers and also to help them to export surplus produce. In the interest of farmers and farming community, it will support civil society in contemplating and adopting a district wise crop pattern.
The state government has engaged scientific community and agriculture experts to suggest district-wise crop diversification plan so as to ensure maximum benefits to the farmers, said Shri B. Vinod Kumar, Vice Chairman, Telangana State Planning Board
“Once implemented, the crop diversification programme will also save the farmers from financial hardship caused by excess production of a particular crop. It will ensure the marketable crops are produced so that income of farmers remains high,” he said.
Mr. Kumar said this while participating at a national workshop organized at Taj Krishna, Hyderabad titled ‘Bridging Gap to create a democratic Global Value chain: Export Potential of Agricultural Commodities of Telangana’. The workshop, organized jointly by Telangana State Planning Board, Centre for Good Governance and Confederation of NGOs of Rural India (CNRI), was supported by leading agrochemical company Dhanuka Agritech Ltd.
Participating in the workshop, Prof. Devi Prasad, Director, Center for Good Governance said, “Some kind of regulated farming system is inevitable in the interest of hard-working farmers and farming system of the Telangana state.”
“There is an urgent need to create the plan with a defined deadline in consultation with scientists, technocrats and commodity experts,” said Dr. Prasad, who has been instrumental in creating the draft agriculture policy of Telangana with a mandate given by the Government of Telangana.
The workshop assumes significance as it was organized in the backdrop of continued surplus production of the food grains in the state year after year. It may be mentioned that food grain production in Telangana has gone up by three times in comparison to production seven years ago and hence, it warrants government’s focused interventions to ensure timely off-take of produce so that farmers can derive maximum benefit from their produce.
Currently the farmers in the state are suffering as Kerala and Tamil Nadu have stopped buying paddy from Telangana.
“Corp diversification will ensure production of marketable crops. It will help in preventing a situation where farmers are laden with crops which have no market at that particular point of time,” Mr. Kumar said, adding the ambitious Kaleshwaram project will go a long way in meeting water requirements of people of Telangana including farmers.
Participating in the workshop, the farm experts underlined the need to create a system and process for Traceability and bringing Block chain technology to the farmland.
Speaking at the workshop, Dhanuka Group Chairman, Mr. R. G. Agarwal said, “Telangana’s Chili produce has been badly affected by Thrips Parvispinus insect and one of the reasons could be the usage of spurious agri-inputs including seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, which is rampant in the country.
“The need of the hour to use better inputs and ‘Traceability’ of the entire food chain may reduce or prevent such incidents in the future.”
During the workshop, Prof. Devi Prasad, Director, Center for Good Governance explained the objective of the workshop. Dr. Gummagolmoth, Director MANAGE who has done study supported by NITI Aayog on Export potential of Telangana agricultural commodities made a keynote presentation. Mr. K Bhaskar Reddy, President, Federation of Telangana Chamber of commerce and Industry, Dr Pratap Reddy former Director IRMA, Dr. Jalapathi Rao former registrar ANGRAU and Shri Binod Anand, Secretary General, CNRI also shared their views. Shri Rajendra Nimje spoke on the importance of IT and BlockChain technology for exports of agriculture commodities.