Andhra Plans Soil Map To Chart Cropping Pattern

In a move to step up grain production, the Andhra Pradesh government in collaboration with Nagpur-based National Bureau of Soil Survey & Land Use Planning, has prepared a detailed soil map identifying areas in the state from where optimum yield of particular crops could be achieved.

The state plans to step up production from the existing 1.9 tonnes per hectare to 4 tonnes per hectare by the end of the ninth plan.

The government plans to issue `soil health cards' to individual farmers in the identified areas, which will provide data on the crop that would fetch maximum yield in a particular holding, fertility of soil and fertiliser nutrients required for suggested crops, water management and pest control.

 

Agriculture minister K Vidhyadhara Rao said this is the first time in the country that a soil map has been prepared to educate farmers on raising optimum crop output from his holding.

Rao told reporters here on Friday that against the normally recognised four types of soil- gravel, red, clay and sandy - the survey has identified as many as 238 soil varieties in the state and likewise, nutrient contents and crops suited in each condition.

The minister said the survey assumes significance considering that over the decades, there has been scale degradation of land and the soil has been stripped of its fertility for various reasons. It will now be possible for farm scientists and agriculture planners to work out specific cropping pattern for each region of the state.

Rao said while the population has been increasing, grain production was not only stagnating but actually coming down.

Grain-growing areas of the state has declined from 80 per cent a few years ago to 61 per cent at present.

At this rate, unless remedial steps were initiated, a stage may come when the state will use its surplus status in grain production, he said.

A soil atlas has also been prepared, besides the soil map. It divides the state into 22 specific agro ecological zones based on the condition of the soil present.

District agricultural officers will guide the farmers on the particular crop pattern and on use of fertilisers.

Rao was confident the soil atlas will help farmers to reap the optimum yield from his holding and thus, in turn,improve the state economy.