The Students of the University of Michigan, USA Praise Mission Kakatiya, University of Michigan students helping the State government study the impact assessment of MISSION KAKATIYA , claimed the use of fertilizers by farmers had come down after they started applying silt removed from lakes in their fields.
Addressing a press conference here Thursday, the students said agricultural yield had increased proportionate to the decrease in the use of diammonium phosphate (DAP) in the fields. The US team has conducted a silt-use survey covering 1,100 farmers in 38 villages in Nalgonda district.
“Roughly, if the use of artificial fertilisers is reduced by 40 per cent, the yield will go up by 40 per cent,” said John Monnat, a member of the team.
One of the team members, who hails from Karimnagar district, Aditya Dahagama, said if chemicals were replaced by silt, over a period of time, the soil quality would improve within two-three years.
“It appears that only 60 per cent farmers are able to take advantage of this initiative. The government should formulate a policy to reach out to the rest as well,” Aditya Dahagama said. Besides listing a host of advantages of Mission Kakatiya, the students said the project would help reduce carbon emissions to a great extent.
It would also help reduce consumption of power, they said. “The project would help in improving the groundwater table. This means the groundwater would move closer to the earth’s surface,” they explained.
Nine students from the University of Michigan are working on a project titled “De-silting Irrigation Ponds in Telangana: The Sustainability of Decentralized Resource Distribution”.
The students have visited four districts in the State, Nalgonda, Warangal, Adilabad and Karimnagar, and interacted with about 500 farmers.
Source: New Indian Express
