Hyderabad: Minister Niranjan Reddy advises farmers to go for crop insurance

Hyderabad: State Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy appealed to the farmers to get their crops insured without fail.

Launching a paddy procurement centre at Panagal of Wanaparthy district on Friday, the Minister urged the farmers to give importance to the crop insurance on par with life insurance of a person.

Farmers are cultivating maize in six lakh acres, horticulture crops in three lakh acres and vegetables in another one lakh acres. But the unseasonal rains that lashed several places in the State have damaged standing crops in an extent of 25,000 acres.

The State government is providing free power, water and input assistance. But the standing crops were damaged when the farmers were about to harvest them.

Farmers cultivating paddy should plan to harvest their crops by March. If they delay harvesting till April, the Minister said, there is every possibility of unseasonal rains adversely affecting the standing crops.

We can not stop rains. But the farmers can contain the losses by insuring the crops for which they have put in hard work.

Steps have been taken to assess the crop loss due to the unseasonal rains and a decision will be taken after discussing the issue in the State Cabinet, he said.

Niranjan Reddy said that the condition of agriculture in the State has gone under a lot of change in the last six years.

Every year one lakh acres are brought under cultivation and the target of bringing one crore acres under cultivation will be achieved soon. Also, there will be no dearth of water for cultivating crops in the State, he added.