7.5% dip in kharif foodgrain crop

Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar yesterday announced that foodgrain production in the current kharif season was likely to decline by about 8 million tonnes, or 7.5 per cent, due to the prolonged break in the monsoon in July. Efforts were on to offset this shortfall by raising farm production in the ensuing rabi season, he added.

Addressing a press conference, Pawar said the first advance estimates compiled by the agriculture ministry indicated that total foodgrain production in the current kharif season would be 100.29 million tonnes, against 108 million tonnes in the last one.

The shortfall was accounted for mainly by the drop in the output of rice, coarse cereals and pulses. However, the production of oilseeds and cotton was expected to be better this year, he said.

These estimates were based on the latest information supplied by representatives of state agriculture departments.

The estimates indicated that the output of kharif rice would be only around 71.10 million tonnes, down 5.3 per cent from last season's 75.5 million tonnes.

The output of coarsegrains was anticipated at 24.5 million tonnes this season, about 12.3 per cent lower than the 27.96 million tonnes in the previous season. This was due largely to an about 2 million tonnes, or 26 per cent, shortfall in the output of bajra and over 1 million tonnes, or 23.9 per cent, in jowar.

While the production of bajra was projected at 5.76 million tonnes, against 7.72 million tonnes last season, that of jowar was put at 3.5 million tonnes, against 4.6 million tonnes earlier.

The output of pulses dropped significantly by 13.7 per cent from 5.44 million tonnes in the last kharif to 4.69 million tonnes in the current season.

The production of oilseeds was forecast to rise marginally by about 2.9 per cent to touch 15.45 million tonnes. It was about 15 million tonnes in the last season.

Of this, groundnut would be around 6.3 million tonnes (up 6.2 per cent from last season's 5.93 million tonnes) and soyabean 7.56 million tonnes (up 8 per cent from 7.0 million tonnes).

The cotton crop was also expected to do well, with a projected output of 13.85 million bales, about 5.5 per cent higher than last season's 13.12 million bales.

Pawar said the foodgrain production target for the next rabi season had been raised to 135 million tonnes, against last season's actual output of 100 million tonnes, so that the total grain output for the whole year was no less than last year's 212 million tonnes.

He said the state governments would be offered incentives like additional Plan allocation and the officials concerned awarded to motivate them to achieve higher targets. The additional Rs 540 crore sanctioned by the Planning Commission in its recent review meeting would be utilised for this.

On sugarcane, the minister said output was projected to drop this year by about 9 per cent to 235.45 million tonnes from the previous year's 261.37 million tonnes. But, there would not be any shortage of sugar for domestic consumption.

Thanks to a carryover stock of 8.5 million tonnes and an anticipated production of 12.5 million tonnes during the year, the total availability of sugar would be about 20.5 million tonnes.

This would leave an end-of-season surplus stock of about 2.5 million tonnes, after meeting the estimated consumption requirement of 18 million tonnes of sugar during the year, Pawar said.

He said the states had been asked to monitor the flow of agricultural credit from commercial and cooperative banks on a weekly basis. This was intended to ensure that the total availability of credit to the farm sector rose this year to Rs 105,000 crore from Rs 80,000 crore last year.