Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

`Help farmers maximise returns from potato crop'

By Our Staff Correspondent

HASSAN MAY 16. The departments of Agriculture and Horticulture must play an active role to help farmers reap optimum benefits from the local commercial crop, potato, the President of the Hassan Zilla Panchayat, B.R.Vasudev, has said. He was inaugurating a seminar on

"Potato agriculture" organised by the Horticulture Department and the zilla panchayat here on Thursday.

According to Agriculture Department estimates, the potato yield in the district was likely to double this year, he said, and advised farmers to mix caution with aggression as the price was likely to drop in case of bumper production.

Stating that most farmers were unaware of market forces that determined prices of agricultural produce, he urged the authorities to provide this information to them. The departments concerned should take steps to produce high quality seeds locally so that farmers would find it cheaper than procuring them from the markets in northern India. Such an initiative would protect farmers from middlemen.

The President of the Krishik Samaj district unit, H.S.Puttaswamy, said the farmers were not getting guidance from the Horticulture Department, which was understaffed. He opined that the department should pay attention to this lacuna, as it was vested with the responsibility for this major commercial crop.

He advised the authorities concerned to take up with the Government the question of reviving the potato seed research station at Sommanahallikavalu in the district. Setting up a proper marketing network could make the potato trade lucrative, he said.The Editor of Janata Madhyama, R.P. Venkatesh Murthy, stressed the need to provide information on market conditions and cropping pattern to farmers. He noted that they usually suffered by growing a crop that yielded rich returns in the previous season without ascertaining the demand for the same during the current season.

The Joint Director of the Department of Agriculture, H.P. Mahesh Gowda, said the area under potato cultivation in the district was likely to increase to 20,000 hectares this year.

The Senior Assistant Director of the Horticulture Department, C.Nagaraju, delivered a technical lecture on the modalities in growing the crop. H.N. Hema welcomed the gathering. T.D. Khande Rao, zilla panchayat member, Basavarajappa, Chairman of the Hassan APMC, Manje Gowda, President of the Hassan Taluk Panchayat, and R. Narayanaswamy, CEO of the Hassan ZP, were present.

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