Minister for Agriculture S. Niranjan Reddy sought the cooperation of ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research for enhancing the cultivation of horticultural crops in Telangana to improve the income of farmers.
A team of officials led by Mr. Niranjan Reddy on Thursday visited ICAR-IIHR at Hessaraghatta near Bengaluru as part of the State government’s plans to encourage and enhance cultivation of horticultural crops having a demand in the market.
Potato cultivation
The Minister sought IIHR’s cooperation in increasing potato cultivation in Telangana since the crop has constant price in the market and has good demand across the country not as a vegetable but as raw material in the refreshment (snacks) market.
The visit has been undertaken following Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s instructions to study the best practices in potato cultivation since availability of water for irrigation has increased in the State and cultivation of regular food crops has been resulting in glut impacting farmers’ income.
The team also comprised Director of Horticulture L. Venkatram Reddy, Vice-Chancellor of Sri Konda Laxman Telangana State Horticultural University Neeraja Prabhakar and others. Stating that there was an urgent need to focus on production of quality regular and horticultural food crops in the country, the Minister said it would improve the export potential and ensure improved income for farmers.
He told the scientists at ICAR-IIHR that Telangana was planning to increase the extent of horticultural crops with focus on export of spices, aromatic, vegetable and fruit crops.
Best practices
Accordingly, the government was studying the best practices in horticultural crops, he said, adding that they have plans to visit Gujarat, Haryana and other States as also Spain, Israel and New Zealand for this purpose.
Mobile vegetable kiosks
Stating that soils in Karnataka and Telangana were mostly similar, he appealed to scientists to focus on research on crops based on market demand so that farmers could take up crops having good demand. The team from Telangana examined the demonstration plots on cultivation of ridge gourd, cluster beans, carrot, chilli, tomato and radish. They also examined mobile vegetable kiosks.
Later, the visitors had a meeting with ICAR-IIHR scientists, including its Director M.R. Dinesh, heads of departments K.S. Shivashankara (plant physiology), T.S. Aghora (project evaluation), and C.K. Narayana (post harvest tech).
