Vijayawada: Some 30 lakh hectares of fallow (waste) land can be brought under cultivation in Andhra Pradesh in the next five years if serious efforts are made in this direction.
Stating this on Friday, special principal secretary to agriculture, Budithi Rajasekhar said the agriculture department and the community-managed natural farming (APCNF) agency should work in coordination to achieve this goal.
He said Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has ordered the extension of nature agriculture methods to all the villages and to bring 10,000 acres under natural farming in each parliamentary constituency.
The senior official was speaking at a two-day workshop on nature farming at Tadepalli under the chairmanship of agriculture director Dilli Rao. District agriculture officers and APCNF district project managers from all districts were present.
Rajasekhar noted that farmers were not getting income due to use of chemicals in farming. “There are 30 lakh hectares of fallow lands in AP. We must bring all the fallow lands under cultivation in the next five years.”
Rajasekhar said, “Nature Agriculture is the refuge to overcome the extreme changes in climate. There are no other alternative ways for sustainable agriculture.”
Executive vice chairman of Rythu Sadhikara Sanstha, T Vijaykumar, said that along with farmers’ income and happiness, people’s health and the protection of Mother Earth depended on natural agriculture methods. “There exists a possibility of farmers earning five times extra income due to natural farming,” he said.
CEO of Rythu Sadhikara Sanstha, Rama Rao, said delegations from 45 countries came to AP to examine and study nature agriculture programmes. In the near future, community resource persons from AP would go to four countries to lay the foundations for nature agriculture there, he said.
