Andhra ryots seek better prices for their produce

The Andhra Pradesh Federation of Farmers Association (APFFA) has expressed happiness over the promises made by the state government with respect to free power and the completion of pending irrigation projects.

They, however, wanted the state government to take a more proactive role with respect to getting the minimum support price (MSP) for their produce.

Speaking at the fifth anniversary celebrations of the association, many farmers raised concerns on the prices they were getting on their produce. They also wanted the government to ensure that seeds and fertilisers available in the market were of superior quality.

Andhra Pradesh minister for irrigation Ponnala Laxmaiah, speaking on the occasion, said, "The present government would not go back on the promises made to the farmers and was with them to ensure their well being."

He said that the government would ensure that all the pending projects in the state would be completed and would give special importance to the agricultural sector for its development.

He also said that the farmers must put pressure on the policy makers to increase the minimum agricultural advances towards the farm sector from the present requirement of 18 per cent.

"Banks must take note that when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister, the allocation towards the farm sector was around 55 per cent which in the last 10 years has fallen to around 33 per cent. Banks must increase the advances to around 60 per cent," he said.

M Sitarama Swamy, president of APFFA, said that the association with Agriterra, an agri-agency based in the Netherlands, has helped in expanding and enlarging the operations of APFFA.

"With the help of Agriterra APFFA was able to establish farm associations, organise training programmes and also in improving the quality of products," he said.

In future, he said, the collaboration would be working for establishing commodity committees of rice, cotton, chillies, horticulture as a full-time activity.

"We are also working towards creating Tejas Samadhana Kendra, an online information centre accessible to farmers and also create a distant extension and training programme for farmers which would be implemented in 500 centres across the state," he said.