BOWLED OVER: Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy harvesting a tuft of System of Rice Intensification (SRI) paddy at a farm in Taramatipet in Ranga Reddy District on Tuesday. Ministers N. Raghuveera Reddy and Ponnala Lakshmaiah are also seen.
51; Photo: D. Gopalakrishnan

TARAMATIPET (Ranga Reddy dt) : Bowled over by the success of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy on Tuesday announced a Rs. 4-crore programme of training and having demonstration plots for popularising this novel paddy cultivation method in every village in the State. The Government will also think of supporting purchase of weeders.

Dr. Reddy who landed right on the farm of G. Nagaratnam Naidu here, appeared pleased with the way paddy was raised using SRI method, held a tuft of freshly harvested crop and showed it to media persons. "We will leave no stone unturned in popularising SRI during the ongoing Rythu Sadassu".

The method being adopted by 212 farmers in 10 districts of the State under a pilot project taken up jointly by the World Wide Fund for Nature and Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University involved water and soil fertility management, planting of seeds in a particular manner and weed control.

The crop raised used less of water and the yield was high. It had nothing to do with seed variety called "Sri Vari" as is being popularly perceived.

Interacts with farmers

Later Dr. Reddy preferred to sit down with the farmers who have adopted the SRI cultivation and heard them share their experiences. Mr. Naidu said under SRI, he planted only 2 kg of seed, used less water and obtained 92 bags of rice per acre. Balamanemma of Mahbubnagar, Varalaxmi of Anantapur, K.V. Rao of Guntur had similar success stories to narrate.

Dr. Reddy said the Government's campaign on discouraging farmers from going in for paddy in rabi was basically meant for conserving water for the coming years when the rainfall could be less. It was not for restricting free power supply, which would continue for the next four years.

Taking a dig at the previous Telugu Desam Government, he said a party, which was not able to supply power for ten minutes, was now finding fault with Congress Government's policy on free power supply covering 95 per cent of farmers.

Only income tax payees and big farmers having more than three pumpsets were being asked to pay charges. "This decision has the approval of farmers in all the 22 districts but TDP wants to support big farmers." The Government also encouraged farmers to go in for crop diversification for which Rs. 17 crores has been earmarked as subsidy.

Agriculture Minister, N. Raghuveera Reddy and Major Irrigation Minister, P. Lakshmaiah were present. Gujja Biksham, Policy Advisor, Global Freshwater Programme, WWF introduced the farmers and Vinod Goud project coordinator, WWF dialogue project spoke.

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