NDDB takes up fodder crop cultivation programme in 7 districts

The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) has taken up an ambitious fodder crop cultivation and development programme in 94 villages spread across seven districts "� Guntur, Krishna, Nellore, Kurnool, Karimnagar, Mahbubnagar, and Nalgonda-Ranga Reddy.

The scheme covers fodder crops "� hybrid napier, sorghum, stylosanthes hamata, azolla, digitaria ischaemum, pillipesara (vigna tylobus), soobabul, sisbania grandiflora and sunhemp.

L C Nunes, NDDB senior manager, who is overseeing the implementation of the scheme, said, "NDDB has adopted the concept from the International Livestock Research Institute, Hyderabad. The scheme advocates cultivation and development of fodder crops through sole cropping, inter cropping, field bunds and waste lands at farmer and village levels."

Under the scheme, farmers of different areas exchange information on fodder cultivation. The scheme would pool ideas and energies from all the departments connected with agriculture.

It involves staff of the cooperative milk unions in fodder cultivation and development, provides farmers better access to fodder supply and services and visualises long term fodder needs. The scheme has already entered the second phase in Krishna and Guntur districts.

Nunes said that Andhra Pradesh suffers from shortage of fodder even during a normal monsoon year when farmers face 25-30 per cent scarcity in fodder.

"AP farmers, reeling under continuous dry spell for the last four years, find it an agonising task to feed 1,99,30,349 livestock they are rearing in the dairying sector. Under such circumstances, the NDDB scheme would be a boon for dairy farmers," he added.

According to Nunes, the worst affected are livestock of Ananthapur, Kurnool and Cuddapah (Rayalaseema), Mahbubnagar and Nalgonda (Telangana), Nellore, Prakasam, Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam (coastal Andhra).

"In parched villages," Nunes said, "Crop residue on field bunds is vanishing. So under the scheme farmers take land on lease or sublease for exclusively growing fodder crops, including green grass. Farmers, in general, go for paragrass (junnugaddi), which requires more water than hybrid napier. For a buffalo or a cow to give four litres of milk a day, grazing of green grass is enough. If farmers want more milk, they should feed the animal on fodder crops," he said

Under the scheme, cultivation of hybrid napier and other crops, which require minimum water, will be promoted.

"Timely supply of fodder seeds, demand-based and need-based inputs and services will be taken care of from bottom-up approach," Nunes said.