Govt. didn’t announce crop holiday, Oppn. spreading misinformation: Agriculture Minister

HYDERABAD

Minister for Agriculture Tummala Nageswara Rao stated that the government has not announced a crop holiday, but it is the Opposition parties that are spreading misinformation to mislead the farming community.

In a statement, the Minister said on Saturday that the government had only advised farmers not to go for water-intensive crops such as paddy due to scarcity of water for irrigation under projects and groundwater shortage due to the impact of El Nino phenomenon and instead take up/cultivate irrigated dry crops, integrated cropping as part of the government’s comprehensive plan.

Stating that the government had been creating awareness among farmers about El Nino for the last six months and informing them about the weather conditions and groundwater levels every week. The government was also supplying seed for alternative crops on subsidy to prevent farmers from suffering major losses.

The Minister stated that the El Nino impact was not limited to Telangana but different parts of the country and world over. Officials were already surveying the crop loss in the 365 drought-affected mandals. Besides, the agricultural scientists and officials were giving updates from time to time. The government was encouraging farmers to take up alternative crops so that lack of water for irrigation before the harvesting stage was avoided.

He explained that farmers were already supplied with 26,847 quintals of bengalgram, 703 quintals of greengram, 1,369 quintals of blackgram, 28,460 quintals of groundnut, 200 quintals of sunflower, 148 quintals of sesamum, 174 quintals of safflower and other seed on subsidy.