Prathipati Pulla Rao, Minister for Agriculture, Government of Andhra Pradesh, urged the International Crops Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) to cooperate and work together to achieve higher levels of growth with science-led interventions in the Andhra Pradesh Primary Sector Mission (APPSM) taken up by the government.
Participating in the closing ceremony of a two-day APPSM Action Plan Preparatory Workshop, held at ICRISAT recently, he said: Officers should work towards building confidence among farmers, using their vast experience and skills.
Farmers need to be motivated to achieve the goal of higher benefits.
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An ICRISAT-led consortium is the knowledge partner in the APPSM and for this initiative; the consortium is bringing knowledge generating institutions along with knowledge disseminating institutions such as line departments to achieve double digit growth in the State.
Over 220 officials from 13 districts headquarters including scientists from ICRISAT and other CGIAR centers attended the workshop.
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Ensuring suitable marketing and price support, pursuing value-chain enhancements and processing through public-private partnership (PPP), minimising financial losses by tackling post-harvest losses, and developing infrastructure for processing, storage and value addition, were some of the main action points that emerged from the workshop.
S.P. Tucker, Special Chief Secretary and Agriculture Production Commissioner, Government of Andhra Pradesh, stressed the need to adopt value chain approach to ensure benefits for the farmers. Dr. Peter Carberry, Deputy Director General-Research, ICRISAT assured full support to Andhra Pradesh government.