Hyderabad: The state government is drafting an agriculture action plan to encourage alternative crops in the wake of drought conditions taking a toll on water-intensive crops like paddy, maize, soyabean and cotton crops over a large extent in all districts.
The government will take up awareness programmes asking farmers to go for short-term crops and mitigate their losses.
The agriculture department will supply heavily subsidised seeds to farmers to sow alternative crops, mainly pulses, millets and vegetables, which are less water intensive.
Major crops such as paddy, cotton, soyabean and maize in lakhs of acres have started withering with no rains for over a month.
With good rainfall witnessed in June, the farmers in all districts had sown paddy, maize and cotton crops over a large extent in the hope of getting bumper production. By July, the situation worsened with no rains and dry spell continuing till date.
Agriculture secretary C. Parthasarathi said the department normally implements alternative crops plan in three stages during drought conditions.
The first plan will be implemented if there is scanty rainfall till July 15, the second till July 31 and final plan till August 15 if there are no rains.
This year, the state witnessed excess rainfall in June and scanty rainfall from July. With this, the implementation of first two alternative crop plans had already lapsed.
