Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has said that the government will not only keep agriculture live but strengthen it further in the State irrespective of the transformation in the agricultural marketing sector at the national level due to the new farm laws.
He asked agricultural officers to record details on cropped area at the micro level within 10 days.
At an eight-hour-long meeting with district heads of agriculture and marketing on Sunday, he reminded them that their responsibilities had taken a big leap due to a large expansion of extent of agriculture in the State. The agriculture department must shift focus from `pen-paper’ to `field-plough’ method of extension service.
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The farmers’ premsies that the government was constructing, he said should house offices of Agriculture Extension Officers and farmers coordination committees. The platforms which were constructed in 2,600 clusters should be brought into use immediately.
Mr. Rao said the food grains production in the State when it was formed in 2014 was only 35 lakh tonnes per annum. Now, it was 1.10 crore tonnes. With an additional 1.25 lakh acres of area brought under cultivation due to ongoing irrigation projects and 40 lakh acres irrigated by bore wells, the production went up to four crore tonnes.
“In these circumstances, the agriculture department had to be strengthened in a big way. The agriculture officers must always be available to assist farmers. They should be advised to stop cultivation of a single crop and instead go for alternate cropping which was more fetching”.
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A release said the Chief Minister issued several instructions at the meeting, including a disciplined approach by farmers to sell their produce at agricultural market yards. The yards will be continued and remain as the only platforms to dispose of produce. Tokens will be issued to farmers village-wise to sell the produce on given dates.
He wanted a research and analysis wing in the marketing department to suggest the best price that farmers could fetch across locations. The purchasing capacity of traders to markets wise should be gathered.
He wanted identification of strategic points for the setting up of oil palm processing units. The agricultural tools should be made available to farmers on hire basis in villages. A simplified procedure should be followed for issue of trading licences at market yards.
The meeting was attended by Ministers S. Niranjan Reddy, G. Kamalakar and V. Prashant Reddy, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar and other officials.