The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : It’ll be a learning experience for farmers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 12, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

It’ll be a learning experience for farmers

Special Correspondent

Bangalore: The State Government will take groups of farmers on trips abroad to enable them learn new agricultural practices in some of the agriculturally progressive countries.

Minister for Agriculture S.A. Ravindranath told presspersons here on Monday that the educational scheme announced in the budget will be implemented from September.

Around 1,000 progressive and small farmers, apart from representatives of farmers’ associations, would be taken on the trip. Guidelines for selecting the farmers would be prepared and circulated all over the State.

Some of the countries which have been identified for the trip include China, Israel, Brazil, Cuba, Denmark, Egypt, Indonesia, Kenya and Malaysia.

The Minister, apart from some officials, will accompany the farmers on these trips for which Rs. 10 crore had been earmarked.

On an average, around Rs. 1 lakh would be spent on each farmer.

Asked on the utility of such trips as similar programmes organised by previous governments had ended up as mere sightseeing tours, particularly for bureaucracy and the influential among the farming community, Mr. Ravindranath pointed out that it would be ensured that the foreign trips this time would be different.

On the fertilizer shortage issue, the Minister said that shortage of chemical fertilizers persisted.

While the Centre had assured 1.39 lakh tonnes of DAP and 1.14 lakh tonnes of complex fertilizers for June, the total receipt was 1.13 lakh tonnes of DAP and 45,513 tonnes of complex fertilizers. In July, while the demand was 95,000 tonnes of DAP and 1.64 lakh tonnes of complex fertilizer, the supply was only 81,325 tonnes and 1.06 lakh tonnes respectively.

Mr. Ravindranath said most other States were also facing similar shortage, but Karnataka bore the brunt owing to an early monsoon.

With reference to the progress in sowing during the south-west monsoon (kharif season), the Minister said rainfall was deficient in 69 of the 176 taluks in the State and this had consequently affected sowing.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka