Anantapur: Farmers blame lethargy of officials for failure of schemes

Anantapur: The farmers in the district feel that the department of agriculture is not doing enough to instill confidence among farmers on integrated farm management by creating awareness on the schemes.

The main objective of Polambadi is to reduce the cost of cultivation and increase the productivity duly empowering the farmers to take economical decisions by adopting practices of integrated crop management.

Integrated crop management is an approach to farming which aims to balance production with economic and environmental considerations by means of a combination of measures including crop rotation, cultivation of appropriate crop varieties and judicious use of inputs but Polambadi kits are not distributed to farmers.

Polambadi is carried out in the crop field and study is being done in the field of one of trainee participant farmers in about 2 acres. The trainees will conduct experiments and validation trails such as comparison between integrated approach and farmers practice.

Due to corona-induced pandemic, the trainees are not organising the meetings. Farmers are buying DAP and gypsum from private dealers at higher price.

Minimum stocks are not maintained at Rythu Bharosa Kendrams. Farmers must register and pay the amount online at RBK later after 3 days he can receive the necessary fertilizers. This year even the breeding seed is not distributed properly, the farmers complained.