BENGALURU: With Karnataka facing a deficit in rainfall, Agriculture Minister N Chaluvarayaswamy urged farmers to take up agriculture activities using less water. Karnataka has received 564mm of rainfall as against the normal 756mm since June 1.
Chaluvarayaswamy chaired a meeting with farmer organisations, department officials and other stakeholders here on Wednesday. He said the latest technology has to be utilised by farmers. “Using more technology, less water can be used to cultivate crops,” the minister added. “One has to use drip irrigation and less water for cultivation,” he added.
The minister further said to help farmers, experiments are being conducted on Nano urea. “This will also be made available to farmers. The State Government is helping farmers to use drone- technology in farming,” he added.
Meanwhile, farmer associations appealed to the minister to provide ragi, groundnut and other nutritional items instead of the additional 5 kg of rice provided in Anna Bhagya. They urged the minister to strengthen farmers’ produce and establish a permanent millet market for farmers.