As part of the tour to study the modern practices in cotton farming including high-density cultivation, a team of elected representatives and officials led by Telangana Minister for Agriculture S. Niranjan Reddy visited a cotton research centre in Texas in the US on Thursday.
After going round the research centre and interacting with officials there, the Minister said high-density cotton farming was carried out with several benefits such as higher production and less inter-cultivation costs.
After examining the farms there along with legislators R. Ravindra Naik, M. Anand and P. Sudershan Reddy, Managing Director of State Seed Development Corporation K. Keshavulu and others, the Minister said high-density cotton cultivation would have 60,000 to 75,000 plants per hectare in case of rain-fed farming and 1.1 lakh plants in case of irrigated farming. The researchers at the visiting centre told them that they were planning to have 1.4 lakh plants per hectare.
He stated that as part of crop diversification the farmers there were cultivating maize after cotton in a year and getting good yield. He observed that large-scale mechanisation of farming, high-yielding varieties and very large landholdings were key behind the success of farming in the US.
However, in India the farming sector that provides maximum employment in the country was mired in all sorts of problems due to lack of vision among the rulers for long. In Telangana, confidence among the farming community was boosted in recent years with provision of investment support at the rate of ₹5,000 per acre for two seasons a year, ₹5 lakh life insurance cover to all farmers below 60 years, 24×7 free power supply to agriculture pump-sets and improved irrigation facilities.
The Minister said the State Government had been working for encouraging farmers towards crop diversification, farm mechanisation and cultivation of crops having demand in the market not only to make farm sector remunerative but also to attract more people towards it.
On Wednesday, the delegation led by the Minister visited a 13,000 acre high density single-pick cotton farm of farmers Richard Kelly and Brad Williams in Tennessee and on Tuesday they visited cotton seed and gene research station of Bayer Corporation in St. Luis.
