Karnataka - Bellary   

A different `field' day for farmers

Staff Correspondent

BELLARY: The Central Soil and Water conservation Research and Training Institute, Bellary, on Tuesday had organised a field day on "moisture conservation technologies for drought proofing" at its farm in Sreedhargadda village near here.

Farmers from Bellary and surrounding places and a team from Anantapur district, Andhra Pradesh, were taken around the farm to show the experiments done besides explaining the techniques to be adopted to get a better yield in low rainfall conditions.

Scientists of the institute told the farmers that cultivation could be taken up in areas where rainfall was less, untimely and not widespread by adopting techniques to preserve moisture conditions. The farmers were shown different varieties of bengal gram, safflower, sorghum (jowar) and sunflower crops, which though sown a bit late, have come up very well and a good yield was anticipated.

Mr. Siddaraju, district watershed development officer, called upon the farmers in rainfed areas, to adopt the technologies developed by researchers to get more benefits. Besides following farm practices to conserve the nutrients, the farmers should also select suitable crop variety and apply organic manure.

Lauded

Mr. Ramana Rao, assistant general manager, NABARD, lauded the efforts of the scientists to help the farming community. Crops could be raised by moisture conservation and limited water and farmers should adopt these techniques, he said. He said that NABARD had come out with several schemes for the benefit of farmers. According to him there were subsidy schemes for creating ponds in fields, vermiculture, construction of rural godowns and cold storages. He said that SC/ST farmers would be given 50 per cent subsidy and loan from banks if they came forward to adopt rainwater harvesting.

P.K. Mishra, head of the research centre, said the district faced severe drought this year with 70 per cent rainfall. Yet it could get a good crop.

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