The Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University on Saturday launched a novel agriculture extension programme ‘Reach every panchayat’ to take the fruits of research to the farms at the grass roots level.
A team of scientists led by Angrau Principal Scientist (Extension) B. Vijayabinanda organised the sarpanches in the mandals of Ongole and S.N. Padu into a group to take benefits of research to the farms.
The campaign aimed at covering all the 1,030 panchayats in the district in phases and bring in sarpanches and progressive farmers on a social media platform to provide solutions to their problems through smart phones. He said it was no mean achievement by the farmers in the state that the agriculture sector grew by 12 per cent at a time when the state faced more than 20 per cent deficit rainfall. Enterprising Prakasam peasants were in the forefront adopting the latest farm technologies, he added. The progressive farmers were enlightened about the latest agronomic practices to improve productivity and cut down costs to make farming profitable by District Agricultural Advisory and Transfer of Technology (Daatt) Centre Coordinator Sandhya Rani and other scientists.
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Daatt centre scientist Ramesh exhorted the farmers who traditionally cultivate Bengal gram during Rabi to go for foxtail millet during kharif taking advantage of the increase in demand especially from diabetics.
Andhra Pradesh Micro Irrigation Project Director Y. Vidya Shankar exhorted the farmers to go for drip irrigation systems to grow crops from every drop of water in the drought-prone district.