AP moots Krishi Cabinet to achieve 18.2% growth

Hyderabad, June 26 (INN): To make agriculture remunerative, profitable and sustainable, the Government of Andhra Pradesh will form a Krishi Cabinet that will look into challenges of the Primary sector, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu said today at a conference on Primary Sector Mission in Vijayawada.

The Krishi Cabinet will meet every month to solve the problems of farmers in the state. For this, the state government is targeting a growth rate of 18.2% for the year 2015-16 with a GSDP contribution of Rs 1.69 lakh-crore.

Given that Andhra Pradesh's farmers are progressive and early adapters of new technologies, the Chief Minister emphasized on benchmarking the state to reach international standards.

Farming should be a sunrise sector, he said, adding that in the last one year the government took up several flagship programmes like Neeru-Chettu, Polam Pilustondi, soil health management, etc. 'All these initiatives are receiving good response but we need to work harder to taking to the end-user in the chain,' the Chief Minister said.

The Chief Minister also elaborated that the state has appointed additional Joint Collector has been made in-charge of the Primary Sector Mission at the district level. The support of ICRISAT and NABARD has proved beneficial, he said, adding that successful water management will yield better results.

From processing facilities to supply-chain management, soil testing, micro-nutrient balance, farm mechanization, increasing ayacut area, to value addition, everything should be streamlined, the Chief Minister said. 'Soil health management has helped our farmers reduce cost of cultivation by improving productivity,' he added.

To revive agriculture, the Chief Minister said that, the state government has spent a lot of money to improve productivity and gradually shift to chemical-free farming. All the growth engines identified under the Primary Sector Mission ' agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry and livestock and fisheries ' will generate huge revenues and have the potential to grow manifold.

Special Chief Secretary (Agriculture) Vijay Kumar informed the Chief Minister that the Centre lauded the Government of Andhra Pradesh for showing results by collecting 3.70 lakh samples for soil health management by using technology through geo-tagging.

An integrated system of farming was also suggested with a certificate course on farming. That apart, the Chief Minister, highlighting the potential of aquaculture, asked officials to focus on Water University while the government is also planning to have working universities in agri-business. 'The government is also working on capacity building of our human resources,' he added.

Underlining the fact that Andhra Pradesh is facing a revenue deficit, the Chief Minister said the government is, therefore, experimenting with new models to generate revenue. For example: The state government is planning to give 5 lakh acres under micro-irrigation on annuity model.

'If Banana cultivation is the strength of a region, we need to increase the area of cultivation by reducing the input costs. This way, we should not only focus on soil health, but also generate revenue through exports,' the Chief Minister opined.

Further, the Chief Minister asked district collectors to prepare an action plan for all growth engines and execute it as planned within certain fixed time-frames. 'Every programme should reach up to village-level. What we need is accountability and target setting from department to district-wise, mandal-wise, village-wise and farmers-wise,' he added.

Cabinet Ministers, Chief Secretary IYR Krishna Rao, Principal Secretary to CM Satish Chandra, district collectors, joint collectors and others officials were present.