Farmers urged to use drones to bring down cost of cultivation

Guntur: Acharya N G Ranga Agriculture University (ANGRAU) Vice-Chancellor Dr A Vishnuvardhan Reddy stressed on the need to use drones in the agriculture sector to reduce the cost of production.

He addressed a meeting held at the ANGAU premises at Lam in Guntur city on Saturday on the occasion of late Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy’s birth anniversary which is celebrated as the Farmers’ Day.

Speaking on the occasion, he recalled that the university sprayed pesticides in 40,000 acres in the agriculture fields with the help of drones to reduce the cost of production. He said the university has set up a training centre to impart training in drone operation. It has so far provided training to 300 students in drone operation.

Principal Secretary (Agriculture Marketing and Cooperation) Chiranjeevi Chowdary urged the farmers to form a farmers’ produce organizations to develop entrepreneurship and the government will also extend the cooperation to the FPOs.

He further said that agriculture should be treated as a business to earn profits and added that if the farmers sell their agriculture yield after first processing and second processing, they will get profits. He suggested to the farmers to go for crop diversification. Later, they felicitated innovative farmers A Mohan Reddy (Veerlapadu), P Rajamma (Venigandla), K Jaya (Revendrapadu), Srinivasa Rao (Vatticherukuru), Bhagyalakshmi (Jonnalagadda), K Padma (Venigandla), G Venkata Ramakrishna Reddy, (Kottareddipalem) and K Lakshmi Prasanna (Venigandla). Agri Mission member Dr M Chandrasekhar Reddy and AP Seed Certification Authority Director Trivikrama Reddy were among those who were present.