Last Tuesday, Agriculture Minister Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy announced that horticultural crops would expand from 4 million acres to 10 million acres within five years.
At the workshop on ‘Farmer Producer Organisations (FPO) and Tomato Value Chain Intervention’ organised jointly by APMAS, Green Innovation Centre and German Cooperation here, he said the government was aware of the low margins in cultivating paddies and hence the effort to usher in a shift to horticultural crops. “We are already the No.1 in the country in papaya, mango, banana and chilli crops and will soon become a horticultural hub.”
Thehindu.com also reported how Somireddy told the farmers that they need to embrace technology as well, to cut down costs.