As part of a drive to encourage farmers to adopt the system of rice intensification (SRI) technique of paddy cultivation, District Collector C. Samayamoorthy on Monday honoured a woman farmer from the district who had won a national award for having achieved a record yield.
The woman farmer T. Amalarani of Vasudevanallur in the district, who harvested 18,143 kg of paddy per hectare under the SRI technique, bagged the Union Government’s ‘Krishi Karman Award’ carrying the cash prize of Rs. 1 lakh and received it from President Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi on January 15.
According to Joint Director of Agriculture K. Soundararajan, farmers across the district were being encouraged for the past few years to follow the SRI technique to get maximum yield while saving on overhead costs as well as water.
Special campaigns were being intensified to popularise the technique among the farmers after the State Government announced a cash award of Rs.5 lakh and a gold medal to those who achieve the highest paddy yield per hectare.
“As water scarcity has become a haunting issue for the farmers, they should adopt the SRI technique, which requires comparatively less water and saves alot of money for them,” the Collector noted
Published in THE HINDHU
