Crop research programmes sought for improving productivity

New Delhi: Agriculture Minister S Chandramohan Reddy and Civil Supplies Minister P Pulla Rao along with TDP MPs K Rammohan Naidu, Seetarama Lakshmi, Galla Jayadev and Maganti Babu here on Wednesday met Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh and urged him to sanction 13 pending crop research programmes at the earliest.

Stating that his department had been pleading for the research programmes since long, Chandramohan Reddy said research would help in increasing productivity and to resolve farm issues for doubling the farmers’ Income as desired by Prime Minister and to achieve a double-digit growth in agriculture as desired by the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.

Referring to crop insurance's pending claims, he said many proposals of farmers were not considered and it was unfair as most of the rejections were on unreasonable grounds.  

Crop insurance proposals were not considered to certain non-loanee farmers because of non mention of the date of sowing in majority of the rejected proposals by the Agricultural Insurance Company of India Limited (particularly in case of Bengal gram and sunflower crops), he pointed out.