Tribal farmers to get agri tools on subsidy
Highlights
Project Officer of Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) M Harinarayanan informed that agriculture tools and equipment would be provided to the tribal farmers on subsidy. He has called upon the farmers to utilise the opportunity.
Paderu (Visakhapatnam): Project Officer of Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) M Harinarayanan informed that agriculture tools and equipment would be provided to the tribal farmers on subsidy. He has called upon the farmers to utilise the opportunity.Harinarayanan was addressing the farmers at an awareness meeting held on ‘mechanisation of agriculture’ here on Friday. He said that the ITDA has appealed to the agriculture officials to create awareness among the farmers in using the agriculture tools and modern equipment for which it has agreed to educate 500 farmers. He assured that the ITDA would provide subsidy to the farmers in addition to that of given by the agriculture department.
Local MLA Giddi Eswari lamented that with the steep rise in investments, the farmers were incurring losses and more over, with the utilisation of latest machinery like tractors and power tillers, the farmers have to cough up huge amount to the private parties. She urged the farming community to avail the opportunity of securing tractors and power tillers on subsidy by forming groups.
Araku MLA Kidari Eswara Rao said that majority of tribal farmers were not utilising the government welfare schemes as they were not aware of it. He pointed out that the government officials should create awareness among the tribal farmers about welfare schemes. He suggested to the officials not only create awareness about the usage of latest farm tools, but also supply seeds, fertilizers and pesticides on time and provide marketing facility for their produce. Joint Director of Agriculture V Satyanarayana informed that 60 power tillers would be distributed to the farmers in association with the ITDA and they have already collected 30,000 soil samples from the lands of 1.5 lakh farmers for testing purpose.
Later, scientists from Chintapalli and Anakapalli agriculture research centres educated the farmers about sowing of various crops that suit the atmospheric conditions of the Agency. They told the farmers about usage of fertilizers, pesticides and how to get high yield by protecting the crops. The agriculture department also displayed the tools in the stalls put up at the local government junior college.
Paderu sarpanch K Venkataratnam, ZPTC member T Nukaratnam, MPP V Mutyalamma and agriculture officials P Sankara Reddy, V Ravindranath, A Nagapadma Rao, Dr Padmodayam and Dr Chandrasekhar were among those present.
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