Need to Bring Agricultural Reforms to Attract Youth Towards Farming: Telangana Agri Minister

Telangana Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy spoke at an international seminar on “Developing value chain in Agriculture” held at the inaugural session of VAIGA-2023 (Value Chain Development in Agriculture) being held in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday.

He emphasized on the need of agricultural reforms to help attract youth towards agriculture.

The promotion of crop colonies is of utmost priority, the minister said as it will help establish a sustainable and remunerative agriculture system for farmers. He highlighted the importance of a strong marketing system, the establishment of food processing industries and value addition to crops.

He said that having different soils and climatic conditions made a huge impact on the type of crops cultivated in the country. The minister stated how there was a need to divide crop colonies based on the crops cultivated in every state in order to create a support system.  “Food has no substitute. Our state government encourages crop diversification and new reforms to meet the changing market demands and gives highest priority to farmers.” He added.

Looking at the growing demand for millets due to changing food consumption patterns, he encouraged scaling up the production and improving the food processing industries. “We want to improve productivity and production alongside value addition in order to be able to export our products. This will help our farmers earn a better livelihood as well,” He stated.

The inclusive planned social and economic development of Telangana was greatly boosted by their agriculture sector, according to Niranajan Reddy, who noted the sector’s immense contribution. Around 1.5 crores or 51% of the state’s land was engaged in farming alongside 65 lakh farmers.

Agriculture holds 18.2 percent of value in Telangana’s GSDP (gross state domestic product) as per the recent estimates. Moreover, he stated how the soil of the state could support a wide range of crops and seed production.