The Telugu Desam Party (TDP), if voted to power in 2024, will promote zero-based natural farming (ZBNF) to cut cost and revive micro irrigation, which optimises water use, to grow crops, TDP national general secretary Nara Lokesh said on Sunday.
Interacting with a group of farmers at Tegacherla at the undivided SPSR Nellore district on the 130th day of his ‘Yuva Galam‘ padayatra, he said the State stood third in the country in the number of suicides by debt-ridden farmers and second in the number of deaths of tenant farmers. These farmers were unable to break even in the wake of an ever-increasing cost of farm inputs and unremunerative prices for their produce. He said the ‘‘anti-farmer’‘ Jagan Mohan Reddy government failed to keep its promises to farmers.
ZBNF would go a long way in drastically cutting down production cost and ending the vicious debt cycle of desperate small and marginal farmers, who now felt that farming was unviable, he said. Micro-nutrients would also be provided to farmers after mandatory soil testing as was done during the previous TDP regime. Another step to cut down production cost was through the supply of sprinklers and drippers for free to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe farmers. Other sections of farmers would be provided the micro-irrigation system at 90% subsidy.
