Farm ponds bring cheer to farmers

Kurnool: Farm ponds brought cheer to farmers. Earlier, the farmers used to depend mainly on rains and take up cultivation accordingly.

The harvested crops, too, fetched less profit due to scanty rains. Now, the situation has totally changed with the farm ponds. Every farmer, who owns at least one acres of land, has dug a pond in his field with an intention to store water and irrigate crops.

Nagarur village about 120 kms from the district headquarters under Aspari mandal has highest number of farm ponds. Around 148 farm ponds have been dug so far and many more are in the pipeline.

Out of 148 ponds, 100 farm ponds were dug by using machinery and the remaining under MNREGS.

All the ponds are brimming with rain water due to recent showers.

The sarpanch of Nagarur village, Kaliki Rama Kistappa, speaking to The Hans India said cultivation is the major resource of livelihood and farmers were benefitted with rain water storage.

Cotton, tomatoes, green chilies, onions and bengal gram are the some crops that are rain-fed. Besides commercial crops, the farmers are mulling to go for paddy due to abundance of water in the farm ponds, he said.

“I took up fish farming in my two ponds and they are beneficial in multi-purpose cultivation,” said another farmer Thota Rangaiah of the same village.

Another farmer Dadi Kistappa also reaped huge profit from green chilies. His planted green chillies in three acres by investing Rs 1.50 lakh (Rs 50,000 per acre) and got in return Rs 5 lakh on the crop.

Besides money, he also bagged the “Adarsha Rythu” award from District Collector Challa Vijay Mohan.

Summing up the mood, most of the farmers in the village admitted that they made profits because of the farm ponds.