The Agriculture Department has identified 1,332 clusters for encouraging cotton cultivation, over 1,000 clusters for paddy and 82 for redgram as part of the plans to take up crops in the next Kharif season in about 1.42 crore acres.
The Kharif 2022-23 plan was discussed at a meeting held by Minister for Agriculture S. Niranjan Reddy here on Saturday. According to the plan, cotton is likely to be encouraged in 70 lakh to 75 lakh acres, paddy in about 50 lakh acres, redgram in 15 lakh acres and horticultural crops in 11.5 lakh acres.
The Minister felt that the farming community suffered loss of prospective income by not cultivating cotton in the extent suggested by the State Government and asked the authorities to encourage them to go for the fibre crop in the planned extent during the next Kharif. He stated that cluster (5,000 acres) wise crop plans were prepared to make arrangements for supply of seed and fertilizer and green manure seed.
He asked the authorities to supply the green manure seed in May itself so that the farmers could sow them early before taking up regular Kharif crops. He told them to ensure availability of quality seed and take up field visits and inspections to prevent spurious seed reaching the farming community.
Instructing the authorities keep at least 5 lakh tonnes of urea as buffer stock by May-end, keeping in mind the Russia-Ukraine war, the Minister told the Markfed authorities swing into action immediately to procure the required fertilizer. He also told the Agriculture Department officials to create awareness among farmers on cluster-wise cropping plans by taking up field visits in May and also train the Agricultural Extension Officers on district-wise plans.
On oilplam cultivation the Minister told the Horticulture and Agriculture officials to work towards reaching targets by involving Rythu Bandhu Samithis. Secretary (Agriculture) M. Raghunandan Rao, Special Commissioner Hanmanthu, Director of Horticulture L. Venkatrami Reddy, Managing Director of State Seed Development Corporation K. Keshavulu, MD of Markfed Yadava Reddy and others participated in the meeting.
