Incentives for cultivating veggies in off-season

CHENNAI: Giving effect to an announcement made by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami recently, the State government has launched a special scheme for providing incentive to farmers who cultivate vegetables during the off-season.  A sum of Rs 2,500 per hectare will be given as incentive to them. 

According to official sources, a minimum of 100 gm of fruits and 300 gm of vegetables are required every day to meet the dietary requirement of vitamins and minerals.  The scheme aims at ensuring the availability of important vegetables to consumers throughout the year, sources said. 

The farmers availing themselves of subsidy under the Crop Incentive Scheme should not claim subsidy under component vegetable area expansion programme through regular schemes operated by the Department of Horticulture and Plantation crops and vice versa.

To avail subsidy under this scheme, farmers should cultivate vegetables during the off-season so that crops are ready for harvest when there is less availability in the markets. The farmers can apply to block-level officials of the Department of Horticulture by furnishing details of seed/planting material bills of vegetable crops, adangal/e-adangal copy along with field photo.

Under this scheme, incentives will be given to farmers based on the area cultivated to the maximum of up to two hectares. Farmers can apply in the Uzhavan app for the incentive under the Horticulture Crop Incentive Scheme. They are requested to approach officials of the Horticulture Department of their locality for information regarding season, crop and other details.

10 more days to insure crops
Chennai: Farmers have 10 more days to insure their Kharif crops under the Prime Minister’s Crop Insurance Scheme - i.e., by July 31.  The agriculture department has appealed to the farmers to avoid the last time rush. The Kharif crops include paddy, maize, toor dal, urad dal, green gram, groundnut, cotton, ragi, corn, rye, sesame, sunflower, horse gram, etc. The farmers can pay premium with the Primary Agricultural Cooperative Credit Societies or nationalised banks.  Those who do not wish to insure crops under the scheme also can submit their requisition in this regard.