Mangalagiri (Guntur district): The Andhra Pradesh Agriculture Department has initiated a comprehensive programme aimed at enhancing farmers’ Gross Value Addition (GVA) and net income through a shift in mindset and thought process. With technical support from Athena Infonomics—the Project Management Unit (PMU) sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation—the department is launching a pilot initiative to strengthen data-driven planning and value enhancement at the Rythu Seva Kendra (RSK) level. The primary goal is to institutionalise systematic planning at RSKs to increase net income, gross value, and value addition for farmers across agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, and sericulture sectors. As part of the initiative, key agricultural resources contributing to GVA will be identified, and RSK staff will receive specialised training on factors influencing value addition.

Director of Agriculture Dr Manazir Jeelani Samoon convened a review meeting here on Friday with senior departmental officers and the Athena Infonomics PMU team. The meeting focused on implementing the Chief Minister’s guidance, which emphasised that farmers must adopt practices that improve net income and gross value from their activities. Officials were instructed to create awareness and guide farmers accordingly.

Dr Samoon explained that, under the second principle of the Chief Minister’s Panchasutralu—promoting demand-driven crops, ensuring global market access, and enabling value addition—RSK personnel must be trained to calculate GVA, understand its driving factors, and identify opportunities within their jurisdiction. He stressed that transforming farmers’ mindset requires RSK functionaries to play a central role.

To enable evidence-based planning, data from all village-level departments will be integrated into the RSK Unit Dashboard. Dr Samoon also directed the PMU team to incorporate market price variations and related analytics into the dashboards, ensuring transparency and accessibility at the RSK level.

The meeting also discussed mapping mechanisation assets statewide, including GPS-enabled harvesters and tractors, to improve planning and utilisation. Dr Samoon emphasised that the Annual Action Plan prepared by RSKs must be realistic, holistic, and data-driven, reflecting inputs from all departmental units. Strengthening the dashboards to display targets, performance metrics, and areas for improvement was highlighted as essential.

Additional Directors of Agriculture V Vijayalakshmi and B Prasad, senior officers, and PMU consultants Amit Chakravarty and Soumya A also attended.