Krishna Byre Gowda, Minister of State for Agriculture, said that the government had realised that farmers had been facing scarcity of agriculture labour or could not afford to hire manual labour for agriculture activities.
Therefore, the State government was contemplating providing all kinds of agriculture machinery and implements, including combined harvesters, to farmers on rent.
Machineries like combined harvesters are expensive, he said, adding that he would discuss the issue with the Chief Minister and get funds allotted in the next Budget to buy such machinery which could then be rented out to farmers through ‘Customised Agriculture Service Centres’ (CASC).
Inaugurating one such centre at Bolenahalli village in Bilikere hobli, in Hunsur taluk, on Wednesday, the Minister said that several machines like power tillers, tractors, disc ploughs, paddy transplanting machines, rotavators, and multi-crop threshers, were being rented out to farmers rent through 180 CASCs across the State, of which seven where in Mysuru district. He said that he got feedback from farmers and officials that farmers had been benefited by these centres. Hence, he had come up with the idea to provide all machineries and implements to farmers on rental basis from next year.
Small and medium farmers could not afford such machinery costing lakhs of rupees, he said.
M. Mahanteshappa, Joint Director of Agriculture, said that CASCs are run by the Dharmasthala rural development centre and machinery were purchased by both the government and the rural development centre on 75:25 per cent basis respectively. Manjunath, MLA, and Pushpa Amarnath, president of Mysuru Zilla Panchayat, were present.
