LAM Farm (Guntur district): Union agriculture minister Radhamohan Singh has announced that the Centre would set up a reg-ional office of the Fishe-ries Research and Develop-ment Corporation (FRDC) as also a prawn seed production centre in Vijaya-wada. He was speaking at the foundation stone ceremony for the Acharya NG Ranga AP Agriculture Un-iversity at LAM Farm near Guntur. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and Union minister for urban development M. Venkaiah Naidu were present.
The minister promised the cooperation of the Union government towards agriculture development in AP, the rice bowl of India. Praising the services of NG Ranga, he welcomed the naming of the university after the noted parliamentarian. He also noted that 14 states and six foreign countries were using Guntur-invented rice varieties like BPT.
The rice revolution of 1970 turned AP into the rice bowl of India, he said, and hoped the new agriculture university would invent more new crop varieties.
The Union minister said the Centre was planning to introduce a rural apprentice system in the last year of B.Sc course to help students get practical knowledge. Even after 68 years of Independence, there was no integrated market for agriculture products. The BJP government would st-art integrated online markets where farmers can get good price for their pr-oduces. “There are 850 ag-ricultural markets in the country and e-marketing system will be introduced in these markets,” he said.
The minister said that as many as 30,000 scientists and their associates were engaged in agriculture research but the results of the researchers were not reaching farmers.
During the period of Lal Bahadur Shastri, India faced a severe food shortage. But, now, the country was self-reliant in this respect due to agriculture development. He urged farmers to shun conventional agriculture practices and adopt latest scientific ways and modern technology for profitable crop yield.
The AP, he said, was on top in aqua culture and it could also become the top state in production of commercial and horticultural crops.
“The Union government has asked four states to start new agriculture universities, but only AP responded,” he said, and promised total cooperation from the Centre for agricultural development in the state.
BJP state president and Vizag MP Kambhampati Haribabu translated the speech of Mr Singh from Hindi to Telugu.
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