Taking a leaf out of corporate world, farmers now have decided to form commodity-wise groups within farmers' associations to discuss problems, learn and implement good agricultural practices (GAP).

Farmers in Andhra Pradesh, who initiated forming paddy producers' groups last year without much success, met here on Monday to form a cotton producers' groups.

10 districts from AP

The representatives from over 10 districts from Telangana, Rayalaseema and Andhra regions gathered here and formed a preliminary leading group to take the issue forward.

“The objective is to exchange ideas on issues such as adverse impact on exports if produce contains residues such as plastics, jute and hair in cotton. International markets such as Japan are throwing up several challenges and require us to keep the produce very clean,” Mr P. Vishnuvardhan Reddy, Vice-Chairman of Agricultural Market Committee and who owns a ginning unit, told Business Line .

The Federation of Farmers' Associations (FFA) will follow this up with district level meetings in association with ATMA (Agriculture Technology Management Agency), supported by the Union Government.

Mr P Chengal Reddy, Secretary-General of Consortium of Indian Farmers' Associations (CIFA), said that these groups could ultimately evolve into societies and companies to promote better marketing of produce and value-added products.

For better incomes

Mr Bojja Dasaratha Rami Reddy, General Secretary of FFA, said generic movements would generally tend to ignore specific problems of a commodity. “Some farmers do not even know how to calculate cost of production. Commodity-wise groups would go a long way in promoting good agricultural practices and improve incomes,” he said.

Mr Reddy said the association would also promote producers' groups for black matpe (urad) and red gram to help farmers reap better incomes.

Mr V Nagi Reddy, Principal Secretary (Agriculture, Government of Andhra Pradesh), who attended the inaugural session of the State-level meet, stressed the need for forming and strengthening commodity-wise groups.

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