Warangal: Farmers find ponds can boost income

Warangal: For the first time in the state, farmers in Warangal Rural district are adopting new methods in farming to enhance their income.

Aided by several government schemes, they are empowered to achieve what many farmers in the state can only dream of.

Farmers like Lingala Buchaiah of Mandhapalli in Duggondi mandal are showing the way to other farmers how to turn a farm pond into a multipurpose commodity.

When the farmer was sanctioned a farm pond like many others in the village, he did not just use it to store water. He reared fingerlings in it and proved that fish rearing is possible in farm ponds too.

“The main purpose of the farm ponds is to see that the groundwater is recharged. One day I and my son-in-law came up with this idea to rear fish in the farm pond. We reared 150 fingerlings for five months. Their sale brought me Rs 10,000," he said.

The District Rural Development Agency, which brings government schemes to farmers to ensure they benefit from them so that their livelihoods are revived, was pleasantly surprised at what Mr Buchaiah has achieved.

DRDA project director Y. Shekar Reddy said they have now started distributing fingerlings to farmers interested in raising fish. “We have constructed 7,900 farm ponds across the district so far. After seeing the success of Mr Buchaiah in fish rearing in farm ponds, we decided to distribute 500 fingerlings. Usually, the farm ponds are 20 feet wide, 20 feet long and about three meters deep. So there is sufficient water for 500 fish to survive. In about five to eight months, these fish can fetch the farmer about Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh,” Mr Shekar Reddy said.

In the past few months, there has been good response from farmers interested in rearing fish.