National consortium to address dryland agricultural issues

In a major boost for dryland agriculture, four Hyderabad-based institutes and the Delhi-based National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (NCMRWF) have come together to help farmers across 15 states improve production, quality, marketing and processing of their produce.

The aim of the consortium would be to update and integrate all farm technologies and achieve concrete and significant results in production, quality, processing and exports.

The national level consortium that has been formed between the five institutes will cover 3,060 rainfed villages in 225 districts of the country.

The Hyderabad-based institutitions that have come together for the project are the Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (Crida), International Institute of Information Technology, N G Ranga Agricultural University and Icrisat.

Y S Ramakrishna, director, Crida, told Business Standard that the apex body would submit an elaborate national plan in this regard to the central government soon.

"Crida has signed 15 MoUs with private companies for transfer of its technology to manufacture simple but modern farm implements. The machines, which would usher in the second Green Revolution, include sowers, sapling planters, weeders, harvesters, ploughs, threshers and other equipment. These tools would be hired or sold to farmers at affordable prices," he said.

The tools would also come in handy to farmers who are unable to stick to schedules of agriculture operations either in the kharif (first) or rabi (second) season due to outdated equipment.

"The institute is operating 15 centres to implement the supply-sale programme. These include those at Kalvakurti, Pulivendula and Mahboobnagar (AP), Varanasi (UP) and Rajasthan. A subsidy of 50 per cent is being offered to the ryots on purchase of these implements," he said.

"Thailand exports 85 per cent of its farm produce while only 10 per cent of Indian harvest is traded abroad."

Placing greater emphasis on water management, Ramakrishna said, Crida has evolved an integrated watershed management scheme to solve irrigation crisis.

"The groundwater levels are fast depleting in Andhra Pradesh. The problem is acute in upland and dry areas. Though Andhra Pradesh gets enough rain for one crop, chances of raising another crop are possible only if the rainwater is efficiently managed and soil is conserved. Ridge furrow system of water conservation is best suited to AP. Growing of useful plants on field bunds, and spreading of extra biomass along with crop residue in the field will preserve the soil and carbon in it. Raising of nitrogen fixing plants such as glyricidia will further consolidate conservation of rainwater and soil."

The centre has also formulated an innovative scheme to solve the marketing problem of farmers, particularly small and marginal, through landless people, artisans and village youth. These sections would be drafted into a collective marketing scheme. The village agri produce, including milk and vegetables, would be marketed within the village and surroundings.

Crida, with the help of IIIT, is also helping farmers update themselves on the latest developments and other information on agriculture through its website. For the purpose, three centres have been set up in Warangal district and 25 in the dryland areas of the country.

He said the Food for Work programme was under implementation in Mahboobnagar, Cuddapah and Ananthapur districts of AP, along with 150 districts in the country selected for the scheme.

The National Commission for Farmers is assisting in the execution of the scheme. Programmes to supply farm inputs to farmers at their doorsteps; form water bodies and create permanent assets in the long-run have also been strarted.

Ramakrishna said the centre was persuading farmers to adopt organic farming along with integrated nutrition management, including use of vermi compost and organic manure as it had been found that the soils were no longer responding to chemical fertilisers.