Tag Archive Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh General Insurance Corp set up

Government of AP has set up Andhra Pradesh General Insurance Corp #APGICL (100% Govt stake) for providing insurance to farmers. It will further extend its services to other insurance sectors.

How pesticide use data are manipulated-a case of AP


These are two tables from the socio economic survey reports of AP from 2010-11 and 2011-12 which explains what public institutions do to support their claims. The
first table shows reduction in pesticide use significantly from 2005-06 reaching almost half by 2010. thats’ the period when the Non Pesticidal Management Program was implemented in the state. of course area under Bt cotton and shift from low volume pesticides to high volume pesticides also helped for this reduction. all the socio economic survey reports till 2010 showed the same trend and also the data on plant protection and quarantine system also is changed.
 
 

interestingly they changed the data with retrospective effect   the jump is significant and it is 800% in one year and no one cared to explain why there was a change in data or for that matter why there is such a huge jump.
http://envis.tropmet.res.in/DR/Agriculture/Consumption_Pesticides_2013_1.htm
you can check for yourself the socio economic survey reports here
apeconomicsurvey2010-11english
2011-12 socio economic survey agril
this was mainly to say that agril cannot be done without pesticides.
i have my theory..but want to listen to others….

Economic Survey indicates agrarian crisis brewing in Andhra Pradesh

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/andhra-pradesh/2019/jul/13/economic-survey-indicates-agrarian-crisis-brewing-in-andhra-pradesh-2003301.html
AP SocioEconomicalSurvey 2018-19
Even though agriculture sub-sector registered negative growth, agriculture broad sector, which includes allied sectors, managed 10.78 per cent growth, with better performance of fisheries, livestock.
A farmer prepares his land for farming ahead of the Monsoon at Undavalli near Vijayawada.

A farmer prepares his land for farming ahead of the Monsoon at Undavalli near Vijayawada. (File Photo | P Ravindra Babu, EPS)

Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: The Socio-Economic Survey 2018-19 unveiled by the State government on Friday, indicated that a crisis is brewing in the agriculture-driven Andhra Pradesh.
ALSO READ: Andhra CM Jagan keeps promise to farmers, gives Rs 28,866 crore boost
Contrary to the tall claims made in the past, the growth rate of agriculture sub-sector (without allied sectors) nosedived by 9.83 per cent. While deficit rainfall was identified as one of the major reasons for it, the fall in cultivation area of food grains, and thereby agricultural production, also contributed to negative growth.

According to the survey, the area under food grains is estimated at 40.26 lakh hectares in 2018-19 as against 42.06 lakh hectares in 2017-18, showing a decrease of 4.27 per cent. This is particularly because of a decline in the area of cultivation of paddy and major millets. “The total production of food grains in 2018-19 is estimated at 151.12 lakh tonnes while it was 167.22 lakh tonnes the previous year, thereby showing a decrease of 9.63 per cent,” the survey explained.


This is a sharp decline considering that the Socio-Economic Survey 2017-18 said that the area under food grains increased by 2.57 per cent from 39.7 lakh to 40.7 lakh hectares. The food grain production also shot up by 5.65 per cent in 2017-18. In 2018-19, the cropping intensity too has marginally declined to 1.24 from 1.26 the previous year.
Similarly, the gross irrigated area decreased to 36.45 lakh hectares in 2018-19 from 37.3 lakh hectares the previous year. The net area irrigated in the State stands at 28.06 lakh hectares.
Even though agriculture sub-sector registered negative growth, agriculture broad sector, which includes allied sectors, managed 10.78 per cent growth, thanks to better performance of fisheries, horticulture and livestock.
For the record, Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy too, after releasing a white paper on State finances on Wednesday, pointed out that the agriculture sub-sector witnessed a negative growth contrary to the TDP’s claims that it registered a massive growth rate.
To help the farming community, the survey observed that the present government had taken ‘landmark’ decisions such as YSR Rythu Bharosa, YSR Crop Insurance, YSR interest-free loans and others.
Further, contradicting the Finance Minister’s remarks made during his budget speech on Friday that the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) has not grown as is claimed by the previous TDP regime and that the present government is still ascertaining if the figures posted by the earlier government were real or hypothetical, the Socio-Economic Survey put the GSDP growth at 11.02 percent.
The survey painted a positive picture with respect to job creation. It said 49,406 jobs were created in Information Technology and electronics sectors with a cumulative investment of Rs 1,427 crore. In the industrial sector, the survey said, “During 2018-19, 44 large and mega industrial projects were established with an investment of Rs 16,925.08 crore, providing employment to 14,130 people. Similarly, 10,068 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) were established, providing employment to 93,240 with an investment of Rs 3,443.57 crore.”
However, the rate of unemployment in Andhra Pradesh still remains a problem, even though it is lesser than the national average. The survey, which takes the periodic labour force survey (PLFS) 2017-18 as an indicator, said that in rural Andhra Pradesh the unemployment rate increased from 1.2 per cent to 3.6 per cent between 2011-12 and 2017-18. In the same period, the unemployment rate in urban areas increased from 4.3 per cent to 6.6 per cent. “The female unemployment is a bigger concern in urban areas as it is almost three times higher than in rural areas,” the survey cautioned.

AP State Agricultural Mission

190701 AP State Agricultural Mission
AP government set up State Agricultural Mission with an objective to have better coordination among the
allied sectors, as a Policy advisory body. The aim of the Mission is to overcome the challenges in delivering quality and timely services to the farming community and also look into all aspects of production, marketing
and pricing of Agriculture and Horticultural commodities to mitigate the agrarian issues.
The Agriculture Mission shall guide the Agricultural Institutions and the farming community on regular basis. Its basic objective is to provide a policy level platform that works towards providing resilience among farmers and
their empowerment.

AP Money Lenders Act, 2017

Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly today passed a bill aiming to regulate the private money lending business.
The act provides that money lending cannot be done without a license, and the government may, from time to time, specify the maximum rate of interest chargeable by money lenders for any local area.
As per the act, accounts of money lenders shall be audited at least once a year and punishment for charging a rate of interest higher than that shown in the account is up to one year and may extend up to three years.
2017 AP Farmers management of irrigation systems L A Bill No 21

Memorandum to AP Chief Secretary on Loan Waiver

140622-Chief-Secretary-Telangana-final Download
Rytu Swarajya Vedhika has a submitted a memorandum with the following demands.

  1. As a first measure, the Government must delink the loan waiver proposal from distribution of Kharif loans for the current agricultural season and should immediately take action to disburse crop loans  without delay to all the farmers including Tenant farmers.
  2. While the farming community is in deep crisis due to indebtedness, loan waiver is not a solution to end the crisis. The crisis is still continuing even after the debt waiver and relief extended during 2008.   A comprehensive solution lies in bringing in policy changes related to all aspects of agriculture (Credit, input support, extension and marketing) as well as pursuing the land reforms agenda with renewed vigour to bring about a meaningful change in the agriculture sector to help close to 85% ofsmall and marginal farmersto secure and sustain their livelihoods. . A piecemeal, myopic solution to the problem in the form of loan waivers alone is a grossly inadequate solution to the larger, complex set of problems ailing the farming sector in the State.
  3. Tenant farmers, dalits, tribal and women farmers who received lands under various land distributionschemes do not have access to institutional credit. They are taking loans from private money lenders, input dealers or Microfinance Institutions at a higher interest rate (as high as 60% Rs. 5 per Rs. 100 per month).  These farmers  are in deep crisis and constitute a large chunk of farmers committing suicides. This loan waiver is of no help  to them.
  4. Government should make immediate effort to increase access to institutional credit to real cultivators.  One of the problems often expressed by the bankers in giving crop loans to these farmers is the lack of a guarantee for repayment. The state government should establish a Credit Guarantee Fund for small and marginal farmers which can give collateral security to the tenant farmers.
  5. All the real cultivators who are not covered under institutional credit are to be organised into cooperatives and linked to the institutional credit.  All their high interest private loans can be swapped with low interest bank loans.
  6. Loans of all farmers who have committed suicides since 1997 have to be waived and their private loans be swapped with no interest bank loans.
  7. Government should introduce special budget for agriculture with an allocation of atleast 10% of the total budget.
  8. Government must ensure that the loan waiver does not benefit non-cultivating, absentee land owners who have other major sources of income or livelihood and have taken loans in the name of agriculture. Specific mechanisms must be evolved to identify and eliminate the above categories of landowners from the purview of the loan waiver scheme. Further, steps must be taken to identify the actual cultivators and update the revenue records accordingly. Government must also actively explore mechanisms (e.g. setting up a separate Committee) for evolving a set of criteria to enable eligible farmers benefit from the loan waiver scheme in a meaningful manner.
  9. Government should also take care that the loan waiver does not apply to ineligible loanees through the following measures
    1. Restricting the loan waiver only to crop loans
    2. In case government decides to waive short term and allied sector loans, it should be restricted to small and marginal farmers only (up to 4 ha in rainfed areas, 2 ha in irrigated areas)
    3. Exempting Hyderabad district from the purview of the loan waiver. A thorough enquiry should be conducted and if need be waiver can be extended in the second phase. Pending this, the crop loan waiver up to one lakh for all farmers in the other district should be done immediately.
  10. Government should with stain from any effort to impose additional taxes or issue bonds and transfer the burden on to people or the next government.

The real cost of credit constraints: Evidence from micro-finance

In December 2010, the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh passed a law that severely restricted the operations of micro-finance institutions and brought the micro-finance industry to an abrupt halt. We measure the impact of micro-credit withdrawal in this unique natural experiment and find that average household expenditure dropped by 19 percent relative to a control group after the ban. The largest decrease was observed in expenditure on food. There is some evidence of higher volatility in consumption after the ban. All households were affected and not just the borrower households, which may suggest general equilibrium effects.
http://www.igidr.ac.in/pdf/publication/WP-2013-013.pdf

Four cotton growing states records 68% of the Farmers Suicides: NCRB 2012 data shows

National Crime Records Bureau Report-2012 shows increasing agrarian crisis in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra
The latest report of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that the total farmers suicides recorded during the year 2012 were 2,84,694 in the last eighteen years. NCRB started documenting the ‘Farmers Suicides’ as a separate category under self employed from 1995 onwards.
Four states Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh which are predominantly growing cotton in rainfed conditions records 68% of the farmers’ suicides. The two major states Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh have shown increase of 13% and 17% respectively compared over last year and together account for 46% of the total farmers’ suicides.