Telangana’s bold farming experiment

In a first-of-its-kind experiment in the country, the Telangana government has decided to regulate farming in the state from this kharif season. A brainchild of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, the new scheme intends to help farmers get remunerative prices without creating a glut in the market. It has a distant echo in the Karshaka Parishad law enacted in 1988 when late N T Rama Rao was chief minister. Unfortunately, that scheme bombed within months of its rollout.

With big-ticket irrigation projects like Kaleshwaram converting Telangana’s outback into verdant stretches of crops, KCR is trying to strike a balance in cultivation to prevent excess supply in the market after harvesting. For example, if all farmers go in for paddy because of the abundance of water, they would face difficulty when they need to sell it.

As paddy, cotton and maize are grown abundantly in Telangana, the chief minister, after discussions with scientists and agronomists, set acreage targets for farmers for various crops by creating different clusters. He also decided that the Rythu Bandhu—farmer investment support scheme—under which Rs 5,000 is paid to each farmer per acre regardless of how many acres he/she has, will be restricted to those who heed his advice. Interesting though the idea is, there are several unanswered questions. For example, a paddy farmer may not know the intricacies of growing cotton or red gram. How would his apprehensions be addressed? Each crop needs a different set of cultivation techniques. Similarly, farmers are usually sentimentally attached to a type of crop, which needs to be factored in.

Predictably, the Congress has gone for KCR’s jugular, alleging he is trying to force his “half-baked knowledge” of agriculture on farmers and “threatening” that they would have to forego the Rythu Bandhu support if they fail to fall in line. Political animosities apart, KCR ought to take the critics of the scheme, too, into confidence, discuss its contours and address the grey areas, if any. That would help make the scheme holistic and set the stage for a bold, new, path-breaking experiment.