Minister for Agriculture S. Niranjan Reddy called upon the department officials to prepare proposals for establishing a cotton research centre as the government wants farmers to raise the fibre crop in about 60% of the total extent covered during the coming Vaanakalam crop season.
At a meeting held here on Wednesday on the implementation of regulated farming, which was attended by Secretary (Agriculture) B. Janardhan Reddy, the Minister said there was a need to educate farmers on cultivating Telangana Sona variety of paddy which has low-glycemic index compared to any other variety available across the globe since it had good market demand too.
Reiterating that the basic objective and idea behind the regulated farming plan to be implemented from the coming crop at the instance of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao was to make the economic activity not only remunerative but profitable, the minister said the first step in that direction would be to record every crop cultivated by farmers along with exact extent so that further planning could be done.
On the directions of the Chief Minister, the minister also told the Secretary to appoint Additional Director of Agriculture as the Chief Statistical Officer in the department to enumerate all the crops cultivated.
The minister said the farming community in Telangana had been at the receiving end for decades but they were able to regain some confidence during the last few years. However, the government’s effort was to make them dictate terms instead of being dictated by other forces. As part of empowering the farmers, there was need to classify the lands and identifying the crop suitable for different varieties of lands.
He also wanted the officials to prepare plans so that there was no shortage of vegetable crops with the details of vegetables cultivated in the State so far along with their production and also the ones whose supplies were coming from other areas in the country. Director of Horticulture L. Venkatrami Reddy, Managing Director of State Seed Development Corporation K. Keshavulu and Additional Director of Agriculture K. Vijay Kumar attended the meeting.
