Drought: Govt. asks farmers to go for short duration crops -GVR Subba Rao

-The Hindu

Contingency plan focusing on alternative crops drawn up

VIJAYAWADA (Andhra Pradesh): After declaring 296 mandals as drought affected, the State government has suggested the farmers to cultivate short duration varieties like jowar, horsegram, cowpea, korra, red , green and black gram.

Seed distribution

The Agriculture department has prepared a contingency plan to handle the situation focusing on alternative crops, supply of sufficient quantities of seed and employment generation work. As part of it, the department has kick-started the process to distribute the seeds.

An indent of 83,379 quintals was received from the districts including Chittoor, Anantapur, SPSR Nellore, YSR Kadapa, Prakasam and Kurnool. Of this, 64,483 quintals of drought resilient variety seeds were positioned.

And, 60,028 quintals were already distributed to the farmers, which is 93% of the total seeds positioned, department sources say.

Please click here to read more.