HYDERABAD: Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy on Tuesday revealed that the State government has decided to set up a cotton research centre in Adilabad, a red gram seed research centre in Tandur, establish palm oil processing factories and a cold storage unit at Koheda fruit market in the coming days.
Chairing a review meeting with officials of Agriculture, Horticulture, Marketing, Warehouse, oil fed and other allied departments and corporations in Hyderabad, Niranjan Reddy said that steps were being taken to aid in diversification of crops and improve seed quality and yield, to make farming profitable with long-term plans in place.
He said that a committee was being constituted to check the quality of oil palm from the nursery to the transplantation stage, and that palm oil processing factories were being established in Vemsoor mandal in Khammam district, Siddipet and Mahabubabad. Also, the Beechupalli factory is being converted into a palm oil factory that would be operational in the next six months, the Minister said.
Noting that the State government has decided to extend oil palm cultivation across 20 lakh acres in the next four years, Niranjan Reddy said that in the next Kharif season, oil palms would be transplanted in one lakh acres.
Pointing to the wide gap between potato production and consumption in the State which has been resulting in imports from other States reaching Rs 1,000 crore annually, he said that the cold storage unit being established in the Koheda fruit market would help address the problem of shortage of seeds for potato farmers.
As per the directions of CM K Chandra-sekhar Rao, crop colonies would be established across the State to encourage farmers to go for banana, chilli, cottonseed, red gram, mango and other horticultural crops, by branding and promoting crops specific to areas where they are grown extensively, the Minister said. He added that crop loans to the tune of Rs 17,000 crore were waived for 40 lakh farmers, Rythu Bima claims of Rs 3,695.10 cr-ore disbursed to 73,902 farmers and Rythu Vedikas were constructed across the State by spending Rs 573 crore.
Only one micro food processing unit for TS
Nizamabad will have only micro food processing unit for turmeric under the PMFME Scheme, the Union government said on Tuesday. Union Minister of State for Food Processing and Industries Prahlad Singh Patel, replying to a question by BJP MP Dharmapuri Arvind, said that his Ministry was implementing the to provide financial, technical and business support for upgradation of micro food processing enterprises including turmeric processing in the country