University for natural farming to be set up

VIJAYAWADA: Efforts are on to set up a university for natural farming to encourage natural farming and a target has been set to cover 60 per cent of lands under natural farming by 2025-26, Chief Secretary K S Jawahar Reddy has said.

Addressing a review meeting at the Secretariat here on Friday, the Chief Secretary directed the officials to bring awareness among farmers on the benefits of natural farming.

He asked the officials to integrate natural farming areas under e-crop to promote natural farming by which farmers can get subsidy under PM Pranam scheme. He said that the Central government introduced the scheme to save environment and to reduce the usage of chemicals and pesticides to save earth. Rythu Sadhikara Samstha executive vice-chairman T Vijayakumar gave a power point presentation on natural farming and efforts to introduce natural farming in all villages by 2025-26.

He said that farmers who adopt natural farming will get Central government subsidies in a big way.

He said at present 8.5 lakh farmers belonging to 3,730 villages were following natural farming methods in 3.77 lakh hectares of land. He said the natural farming will minimise the usage of water and protect the earth. Special Shief Secretary (Agriculture and Animal Husbandry) Gopalakrishna Dwivedi, Special Chief Secretary (Panchayat Raj and Rural Development) B Rajasekhar, Finance Secretary N Guljar, SERP CEO Intiaz and others were present.

KAKINADA-SRIKAKULAM NATURAL GAS PIPELINE: In another review meeting, the Chief Secretary directed the officials to speed up Kakinada-Srikakulam natural gas pipeline to complete the project by June next year.