Media asked to give wide publicity to co-op farming

Hyderabad, July 15 :-

Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy is preparing to introduce cooperative farming in the State in a big away. Intially, it is planning to introduce cooperative farming as a pilot project in two villages of every district.

Convening a meeting with higher officials and Minister for Agriculture Raghuveera Reddy on Wednesday, the Chief Minister discussed the various facets of cooperative farming.

Rajasekhara Reddy said that concept would be implemented in select villages where gram sabhas passed an unanimous resolution expressing their willingness to adapt to the new system.

Cooperative farming, with village as a unit, had been proposed in view of the highly fragmented land holdings in the State that were creating hurdles in extension of credit and technology for improving productivity to meet the ever-increasing demand.

Dr Reddy asserted that there was no involvement of corporates or big business houses in cooperative farming and the government would put in place all safeguards required to address the concerns over the new system.

He asked the media to give wide publicity to the cooperative farming as it benefits farmers largely. The Chief Minister directed the Agriculture Technology Mission to work out the modalities for implementing cooperative farming.