THANJAVUR: Farmers in the delta region welcomed Tuesday’s budget announcement on allocation of fewer villages per agriculture extension officers, as they believed this would increase the latter’s visits to each village to advise them on various aspects, including schemes and saving crops from pests and diseases. Minister for Agriculture MRK Panneerselvam while presenting the budget announced the ‘Uzhavar Aluvalar Thodarbu Thittam-2.0’ (UATT) (farmer-official interacting scheme).
Currently, an assistant agriculture officer is allocated eight to 10 panchayats and one horticulture officer 10 to 15 panchayats for providing extension services to farmers like providing department-related information and implementing the schemes. As such the officers can visit the respective village panchayats only once in a fortnight.
Hence designating one extension official for each village panchayat has met a long-pending demand of the farmers, the minister pointed out. "So, the 4,311 extension officers of agriculture and allied departments working at the block- and village- levels will be pooled and each one will be assigned three or four villages," the minister added.
They will integrate all activities related to agriculture, horticulture and plantation crops, agricultural marketing and agribusiness, and agricultural engineering at the village level, he said. P Senthilkumar, a farmer from Ammapettai in Thanjavur pointed out that such an officer currently covers even up to 20 villages.
"Besides lack of information on various schemes, many farmers now depend on input dealers for advice on saving crops from any pest attack or diseases," he said. Many a time the farmers had to shell out extra money due to wrong advice by the dealers. Now with one officer concentrating only on about four villages, farmers can meet them often and get suitable advice, he added.
Further, Senthilkumar welcomed the proposal to nominate one agriculture scientist per block to provide information on newly-released varieties, cultivation methods, nutrient management, etc. The budget envisages nominating one scientist per block either from nearby agricultural colleges or from agriculture research centres and farm science centres.