CM Jagan seeks more aid to agri infra, natural farming

Vijayawada: Chief Minister Jaganmohan Reddy on Monday underlined the need for strengthening agriculture infrastructure and making it beneficial to farmers and allied sectors in the state in an expeditious manner.

Chairing a high-level meeting with AP agriculture mission vice-chairman Nagi Reddy and senior officials here, the CM called for speedy progress in the construction of godowns, given the high global demand for agriculture products raised through natural and organic farming. He advised farmers to avail such opportunities.

The CM laid stress on an action plan on requisite machinery to take up organic and natural farming so that they could be set up at every Rythu Bharosa Kendra in the state. Every effort must be made to ensure a better price to the Agri products raised through organic and natural farming and provide incentives to such farmers, he said.

On the construction of godowns, officials said the land acquisition was over and construction was initiated at 1,165 places and works were in progress at 278 places. Weighing machines and moisture testing machines were being arranged to help farmers and ensure they do not get duped. Some 6,293 tools used in procurement were being made available to the farmers, officials told the CM.

As for the processing units, the officials said 33 seed and millet primary processing units were being set up with a parliamentary segment as base, and these would be ready by Kharif 2022. Processing would help farmers get a good price as quality is to be assured.

They said that those involved in secondary processing would get raw material for use in their trades. On secondary processing units, works were going on in 13 units and efforts were on to set up collection centres and arrange cold storage facilities, especially for horticulture farmers.

Some 175 ambulances meant for animal care, one for each assembly segment, would be flagged off in March.

On the Jagananna Pala Velluva scheme, the officials said milk collection was being taken up in 1,110 villages. Nearly 28 lakh litres of milk was being collected per month. So far, 2.03 crore litres of milk was collected. The dairy farmers were paid Rs 86.58 crore and they got an additional benefit of Rs 14.68 crore.

As for the development of infrastructure for the aqua sector, the officials said aqua hubs etc would benefit nearly 80,000 persons directly or indirectly to earn money. Seventy aqua hubs and 14,000 spokes would be set up by June while work on setting up 23 pre-processing plants and 10 processing plants was in progress.

On fishing harbours, the CM was told that work on developing fishing harbours at Juvvaladinne, Nizampatnam and Machilipatnam was going on and works would be expedited at Uppada. In the second phase, works at Pudimadaka, Biyyaputippa, Vodarevu and Kothapatnam would be taken up and completed by end of December.