CHENNAI: The State has unveiled a massive sustainable dryland agriculture mission to be implemented in four years – from 2016-17 to 2019-20 – at a cost of Rs 802.90 crore. This was one of the key promises made in AIADMK’s election manifesto.
A formal announcement was made in the budget for 2016-17 and a GO in this regard with detailed guidelines was issued by Agriculture Secretary Gagandeep Singh Bedi on January 27.
Under the scheme, dryland would be developed in cluster mode. Dryland agriculture refers to cultivation of rainfed crops. Large number of farmers depend on dryland agriculture for their livelihood. Hence, sustainability in dryland farming assumes more importance for the upliftment of the farming community.
In Tamil Nadu, millets, pulses and oil seeds are mostly raised under rainfed condition. In such areas, the input usage and yield obtained would invariably be less compared to irrigated areas.
With a view to bring maximum dryland area under cultivation in a phased manner, cluster based activities would be adopted. It is proposed to form 1,000 dryland clusters at the State level over a period of four years.
In the first year, 200 clusters would be formed and in the next two years, 400 clusters would be formed in each year. Activities would be carried out in these 1,000 clusters over a four years period.
Each Dryland Cluster would consist of all drylands falling in one or more contiguous village panchayats aggregating to an area of about 1,000 Ha.
Each Cluster would function under a Nodal Primary Agricultural Cooperative Credit Society (PACCS). If 1,000 Ha could not be formed within the area of a single PACCS, the area of an adjoining PACCS could be included within the cluster. However, the nodal PACCS would remain the one that has the jurisdiction over the majority of the area covered.
In each cluster, village-panchayat wise Farmers’ Clubs called “Maanavari Grama Vivasayigal Membattu Kuzhu” (Rainfed farmers development committee) would be formed.