Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has expressed concern over the stagnation in the agricultural growth in Andhra Pradesh for the last one decade. “Stagnation is there both in the growth of yields and in growth of total output,” Singh said addressing the first state level agriculture review meeting here on Tuesday.
The review meeting was held by the Prime Minister as part of the decision taken at the National Development Council (NDC) meeting for developing district and state level action programmes to bridge yield gaps and to increase the agriculture productivity. The Union government has also decided to provide additional assistance to the tune of Rs 25,000 crore for agriculture support programmes.
Expressing that the Andhra Pradesh is relatively better off (than others) in utilizing the inputs, Singh insisted that there is still more scope for improving the yields. Showing the example of cotton crop, which had improved yields and also increase in the cotton grown areas in the state, the Prime Minister felt similar improvement is possible in case of rice and pulses also.
Singh said that there is a need for bridging yield gaps in the south Telangana, while the north Telangana gets relatively high rainfall, it has low yields in rice and sugarcane.
He suggested the State government to prepare focused, decentralized district plans after taking the local realities and opportunities. While converging the activities of all the agri related government departments, Singh suggested to the government to focus more on closing yield gaps and increasing farm livelihood programmes.
While complimenting the State for its vision for expanding the irrigation on a massive scale, Singh said that the government should focus more on a animal husbandry and fisheries which is considered as good risk diversification strategy.