TN: Agriculture dept takes short film route to sensitise farmers about schemes

Chennai: To enhance revenue generation among farmers and to boost rural economy, Tamil Nadu agriculture department has intensified Collective Farming and Dryland Agriculture in rural parts of the state. Besides the field visits by agriculture department officials, short films for farmers are now ready for screening during this monsoon.

For the past two years farming was hit in the state due to deficit monsoon and the focus was more on enrolling the farmers under the Centre’s new crop insurance scheme- Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana under which 15.37 lakh farmers in TN have insured their crops raised in about 31.85 lakh acres. TN is now a leading state in enrolling farmers and now with the state receiving copious rains the agricultural engineering department is also instructed to ensure that quality seeds and agricultural equipments are available for all farmers.

Under the collective farming initiative farmers of a particular village will formed as a cooperative group and each group will get seeds, subsidies, fertilisers and tractors from government. A representative from the group can avail the government facilities for his group saving time of all other farmers. Further the cooperative group can also approach the district agriculture department seeking storage facilities or mills that are essential to stock and market the agricultural products, an official said.

The film titled Kuttupannaiyam oru vivasaya puratchi is an eight minute shortfilm explaining the schemes and technologies available with the state. It also campaigns for co-operative farming and formation of village clusters to market agricultural products.

According to state official sources for the year 2017, insurance to a tune of Rs 1,066 crore has already been deposited to bank accounts of farmers. Distribution of another Rs 903 crore is underway. The state has paid a premium of Rs 440.18 crore as its share to cover the farmers spread across the state.