Plans afoot to promote natural farming and local crop varieties in Nandyal district of A.P.

Nandyal district administration promotes local crops, natural farming, and agricultural growth through innovative initiatives and collaborations.

Nandyal district administration is giving impetus to encouraging the farmers to cultivate local variety of crops and take up natural farming in a big way.

District Collector Rajakumari Gania, who gave a presentation on the administration’s plans to increase the growth rate in the district to more than 15% at the recently held Collectors’ Conference, said there are 65% waste or unfertile lands under the agriculture and allied sector departments. The administration is planning to promote cultivation of soya, bajra and black gram in these lands based on the nature of the lands, she said. The administration would be taking the assistance of Regional Agriculture Research Station (RARS) and Agriculture University in this regard.

According to the Collector, they have brought 40 drones into use for use in agriculture. Further, horticulture crops were being grown in 48,000 hectares and the administration is trying to increase the extent of the crops by another 10,000 hectares. Ms. Rajakumari Gania said the crop was planned to be increased by 25-30% by promoting the use of drip and micro irrigation practices.

The District Collector said the yield in regard to cultivation of fruits was 26,000 metric tonnes per acre and the same could be increased to 40,000 metric tonnes by using Bunch Production.

With respect to live stock management, 11 lakh litres of milk was being produced in the district and it could be increased by an additional 6 lakh litres. She said fish could be grown in five reservoirs and 124 minor irrigation tanks in the district and after meeting the demand in the district, the remaining could be transported to other cities for sale.

The Collector said steps were being taken to allocate land to 500 MSME units, power plants and compressed bio gas plants in the district. She said there was a need to once again bring into use the limestone quarries in the district and also for acquiring land for construction of a bridge on river Kundu and Joladarasi project.