With the procurement of paddy gaining momentum in the State, the administration has shifted its focus to storage of the grain purchased from farmers by scouting for functional halls lying vacant due to the COVID-19 lockdown and other traditional systems of storage to overcome the space shortage in godowns and rice mills.
In a video-conference held with district officials on the Agriculture and allied departments’ preparedness for the next crop season, vaana kalam, Agriculture Production Commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy said storage of crop produced in the yasangi was a major problem and the government was planning to utilise function halls lying vacant at village, mandal and district levels to store paddy and other crops procured from farmers till they were moved to rice mills for custom milling and for processing.
The government was also considering Cover and Plinth (CAP) system of traditional storage to overcome the space shortage with plans to store about 4.21 lakh tonnes in the method.
(The CAP storage method includes arranging a plinth with hooks provided for tying ropes to lash down the grain stack piled on the plinth constructed with bricks to a height of 14 inches from the ground. Dunnage is provided before covering the stack with covers made of black polyethylene of 250 microns thickness. The covers are held down by nets and nylon lashing, also tied to the hooks at the bottom. Condensation is prevented by placing a layer of paddy husk-filled sacks on top of the stack under the polyethylene.)
As on April 27, over 16.91 lakh tonnes of paddy has been purchased from farmers at 5,503 procurement centres opened till date. Similarly, nearly 2.76 lakh tonnes of maize was purchased at 947 centres, 63,000 tonnes of bengalgram at 85 centres and 4,200 tonnes of sunflower at 11 centres.
On the preparedness for the next crop season, the APC instructed the officials to concentrate on collection of soil samples and getting tests done so as to inform the results to farmers concerned as also positioning of seed and fertilizer.