Andhra Pradesh has begun work on a Global Horticulture Hub (GHH) at Madanapalle in Annamayya district, a project meant to speed up horticultural growth across the drought-prone Rayalaseema region. The foundation stone was laid on Friday by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, together with Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan, HRD Minister Nara Lokesh and Reliance Industries Executive Director Anant Ambani.
The hub is expected to draw an estimated Rs 1 lakh crore. Of that, the Centre is expected to provide Rs 40,000 crore and private investors the remaining Rs 60,000 crore. The project covers eight districts of Rayalaseema and is meant to raise the region's gross value added through horticulture.
The state plans to expand the area under horticultural crops from 8.4 lakh hectares today to 14.4 lakh hectares.
Naidu said the project would work on the whole agricultural value chain, from seed development to market and export links. That, he said, would let farmers diversify into crops such as apples, strawberries, dates and avocados and earn more sustainable incomes.
Alongside the hub, Reliance Industries announced an Indian School of Agriculture (ISA). It is proposed on the lines of the Indian School of Business, as an agricultural institution focused on advanced technologies, artificial intelligence and their use in farming and horticulture. Anant Ambani said the company wanted to contribute to Andhra Pradesh's development.
Sitharaman said the Centre and the state were working together to make Andhra Pradesh a major horticultural centre. She pointed to farm credit through Kisan Credit Cards and PM-KISAN, and to efforts to make farming more resilient to climate risk, including climate-resilient crop varieties and solar-powered irrigation pumps under schemes such as PM-KUSUM.
The report is by Rajasree Singh.
Photo: rajaraman sundaram / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Source: Rural Voice
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