By launching an exclusive budget for the agricultural sector, the DMK government has explained its intention to focus on activities that help feed the population.
Note, 42% of Tamil Nadu workers are farmers and, in rural areas, more than 58% of households depend on agriculture for livelihoods.
Agriculture in the state faces many challenges – limited water availability, too much exploited land, excessive to chemical fertilizers and pesticides, non-availability of labor, lack of remunerative prices for products, and conversion of agricultural land into real estate plots.
The DMK government, in its agricultural budget, has announced many steps such as separate wings for organic agriculture within the Ministry of Agriculture, ₹ 573 Crore to the State Agricultural University to carry out research, agro-industrial corridors throughout the Cauvery Delta District, a picual preparation center to promote cultivation and product processing, establishing more farmers’ markets to save farmers from intermediaries and traders and, above all, make every independent village in production.
This pandemic has become a great learning experience and Tamil Nadu shifts to the Gram Swaraj Gandhiji model to grow vegetables and fruits in each village a year ago.
The new government has initiated a mission to advance the project.
Nilgiris Regency has made a big step in organic farming.
To make organic farming succeed, farmers need to be sensitive about best practices and this needs to be integrated with modern technology, said D Shanmughanathan, a farmer.
Farmers must be equipped to make organic fertilizers and their own organic pesticides if organic farming must be economical.
In addition, difficult fertigation while following the practice of organic farming, he said.
“The new government has begun its journey in the right direction.
The Delta district, which is deprived of any major industry, will benefit from the Agro-Industrial Corridor Project,” said V K v Ravichandran, a farmer in Nannilam in the Tiruvarur district.
“Funds for research will have benefits of fartaching.
The development of better plant varieties and the use of technology can turn around the farmers and lives of farmers,” he added.
However, the government, it might fail to see a bigger picture.
Farmers need to switch from water intensive cultivation practices to micro irrigation methods, Ravichandran said.
“To grow a kg of rice, a farmer must supply around 4,800 liters of water.
But under micro irrigation, for example drip irrigation, water consumption fell to 1,200 liters.
I have grown rice using drip irrigation.
Micro irrigation and precision agricultural practices need more Emphasis, “he said.
V Antonisamy, an organic farmer in Puliyangudi in the Tenkasi District, has produced results from 90 tons of sugar cane per acre using drip irrigation when most farmers struggle to produce 40 tons per hectare.
Tamil Nadu only has 3% of Indian freshwater resources.
The availability of water per capita in Tamil Nadu is only 750 cubic meters a year, compared to the national average of 2,200 cubic meters.
However, the country cultivated rice using flood irrigation at 4.4 million hectares – around 30% of the seducuted areas and 50% of the total irrigation area.