Siddipet organized Farmer Scientist interaction meeting

Telangana Rythu Vigyan Kendra (TRVK), Siddipet has organized Farmer Scientist interaction meeting on crop diversification at Itikyala (V), Jagadevpur (M), Siddipet district on 30.03.2026. Dr. Ch. Pallavi, Coordinator, TRVK Siddipet explained that cultivating alternative crops to paddy such as maize, sunflower, green gram, black gram, sesame, vegetables, and safflower would promote and help in effectively controlling the stem borer pest, which is a major problem. She further stated that these crops require less water, have a shorter duration, involve lower investment, and provide higher yields. She also raised several questions to farmers, why red gram is not being cultivated in red soils instead of cotton, why pulses and sesame are not grown during the rabi season after cotton. why rainfed crops are not taken up in upland areas during the kharif season, why red gram is not cultivated after maize in rabi, why farmers near urban areas are not shifting to vegetables and flower cultivation instead of paddy and cotton. Farmers expressed severe problem of monkeys damaging crops, paddy is grown majorly due to assured government procurement, low market price for maize, need for high-yielding varieties of red gram, requirement of quality seeds of Green gram, Black gram, Red gram, Sesamum, Castor, Safflower crops at local outlets, demand for support in establishing community solar fencing. Later, the Mandal Agriculture Officer, U. Vasantha Rao, stated that about 25,000 acres in Jagadevpur mandal are under paddy, maize, and cotton cultivation. He advised farmers to adopt crop diversification instead of depending only on these three crops. In this programme, AEO (Samatha), Village sarpanch Rajalingam and 100 farmers were participated.