Grow vegetables for gain, Pocharam tells farmers

Minister for Agriculture and Horticulture Pocharam Srinivas Reddy on Saturday advised the farmers to go in for sowing horticulture crops like vegetables to reap profits. Participating at a Horticulture coordination meeting in Hyderabad, the minister expressed concern over the unabated suicides by the farmers whose figure was pegged at three lakh after Independence as per the National Crime Records Bureau. Admitting that there were some discrepancies and lacunae with regard to the Acts and policy decisions of the governments on farmers’ welfare, Pocharam said steps would be taken to end the problems to ensure that the farmers get timely succor for better living in future. He said the TRS government would make sweeping changes with regard to the farmers welfare. Since the farmers were fed up with the normal crops resulting in recurring losses, they should focus on horticulture crops like vegetables for better benefits. He cited some reasons for the farmers’ woes such as low yield, poor MSP, borewell failure and other factors resulting in losses which should be plugged off seriously. Though the previous governments did not help the farmers, the TRS Government was liberally giving funds under the Mission Kakatiya for lakes revival. “There is huge demand for vegetables in the State of Telangana. As against 30 lakh acres of vegetable crops, the farmers are able to sow them in just nine lakh acres,' he said. Keeping the escalating demand for vegetables, the farmers should prefer to sow them to reap in better income rather than go in for the regular crops, the minister said. Agriculture Secretary Parthasarathi said they could get better yields from a variety of paddy brought in from Tamil Nadu and sown at Dhannora village in Adilabad district. To replicate this elsewhere, the officials should ask the Collectors to find land to encourage new seed fields to produce and supply the same to the growing needs of the farmers in the State.