PNS|Vijayawada
The AP government is concentrating on expanding natural farming and the establishment of Natural Farming University, Chief Secretary Dr KS Jawahar Reddy. He said that the government aims to expand natural farming to 60% by 2025-26 across the State. The CS on Friday reviewed with the officials on the expansion of nature cultivation, fund allocation, and establishment of a university specially related to nature cultivation at the Secretariat in Velagapudi. He advised the officials to take more measures as a directive that there is a need to create awareness among all the farmers in the State so that they can practise natural farming.
He clarified that there is a need to make farmers aware of the benefits of natural farming in the state in the past seven years and encourage all the farmers to cultivate under this system. He said that the entire area of natural farming should be e-crafted and integrated. Moreover, he said that natural farming and non-natural farming should be integrated.
He said that if the farmers follow the natural farming system and reduce the use of fertilizers and pesticides, they can get massive subsidies under the Prime Minister’s Pranam Scheme and this scheme will help to encourage reducing dependence on fertilisers. The states participating in the PM Pranam scheme will get subsidies as compensation for reducing the use of chemical fertilizers. Thus, the state will have the opportunity to get a large number of subsidies for PM Pranam. With the help of such subsidies, NABARD, banks and various donors. CS. Jawahar Reddy said that efforts are on to establish a special university in the state related to nature cultivation.
T Vijay Kumar, Executive Vice-Chairman of the State Farmers Empowerment Organization, gave a PowerPoint presentation on the expansion of natural irrigation in the state and said that appropriate measures are being taken to promote the expansion of natural irrigation in all villages in the state by 2025-26. He said that there will be an opportunity to get funds under the PM Pranam Scheme under a large-scale subsidy, which will enable expansion of nature cultivation in all the villages across the state.
The Executive Vice-Chairman said that at present, under community-managed natural farming in the state, 8,50, 000 people have been registered in 3,730 villages and they are cultivating 3 lakh 77 thousand hectares through natural farming. He said that natural farming has given an opportunity to protect soil and the environment, reduce water consumption, and reduce air pollution in the state for the past seven years. He stated that community-managed natural farming has achieved remarkable results.
Also in this meeting, CS reviewed various issues related to nature cultivation. In this meeting, Special Chief Secretary of State Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Department Gopala Krishna Dwivedi, Special Chief Secretary of State Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Department B. Rajasekhar, CEO of Farmers’ Empowerment Organization B. Rama Rao participated in this meeting and Finance Secretary N Gulzar, SERP CEO Imtiaz participated.
