VIJAYAWADA: Agriculture Minister Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy has said that the State has registered a remarkable growth in agriculture and its allied sectors in the last three-and-half-years.
As about 62 per cent of population (nearly 3 crore people) is dependent on agriculture and its allied sectors, the government is giving top priority to them.
Speaking to mediapersons at the Interim Government Complex (IGC) at Velagapudi on Tuesday, Somireddy said the government is taking steps for providing remunerative prices for farmers' produce. The farmers are being encouraged to go in for organic farming.
While the use of pesticides declined to 998 tonnes in 2017-18 from 2,131 tonnes in 2014-15, the use of chemical fertilisers dipped to 28 lakh tonnes from 36 lakh tonnes in the corresponding period.
Stating that AP achieved a growth rate of 17.76 per cent in 2017-18 while the growth rate of the country stood at 3 per cent, the minister said the government has decided to increase the area of natural farming to 5 lakh acres by 2020-21 from the present 1.65 lakh acres.
Alleging that the BJP government at the Centre had betrayed the people of Andhra Pradesh without fulfilling the provisions of the AP State Reorganisation Act, Chandramohan Reddy said that the saffron party would face the wrath of people not only in AP but across the nation.
The BJP leaders may be of the view that they will lose nothing in AP by doing injustice to the State where they have no base, but they should be prepared to face the heat across the nation for ditching AP though the ruling TDP was in alliance with the saffron party, the minister warned.