With the state receiving good rains, the agriculture department has worked out higher production and productivity targets for crops of 2008-09 kharif (first crop). For paddy, the target has been fixed at 1.63 million tonne (productivity 5,627 kg per hectare) as against 982,000 tonne in the previous year.
The respective targets fixed for jowar, bajra and maize are 0.007 lakh tonne, 0.005 lakh tonne and 0.06 lakh tonne.
Their productivity figures are 3,300 kg per hectare, 2,500 kg per hectare and 3,000 kg per hectare. Last year’s maize production was 0.01 lakh tonne.
An action plan has been prepared to achieve a harvest of 0.33 lakh tonne of redgram (productivity 1,100 kg per hectare), 0.032 lakh tonne of greengram (800 kg per hectare) and 0.012 lakh tonne of blackgram (1,000 kg per hectare).
Last year, farmers produced 0.22 lakh tonne of redgram, 0.01 lakh tonne of greengram and 0.01 lakh tonne of blackgram.
Chilies production target has been hiked from last year’s 349,000 tonne to 384,000 tonne with a productivity of 6,000 kg per hectare and that of cotton from last year’s 724,000 bales to 776,000 bales (a bale is 170 kg).
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This works out to 2,475 kapas (cotton with seed) per hectare. The target for sugarcane is up to 156,000 tonne (90,000 kg per hectare).
The department is targeting groundnut production at 0.003 lakh tonne (productivity1,450 kg per hectare), sesamum at 0.016 lakh tonne (625 kg per hectare), soyabean 0.003 lakh tonne (1,500 kg per hectare), castor at 0.02 lakh tonne (1,000 kg per hectare), turmeric at 0.26 lakh tonne (5,500 kg per hectare) and sunflower at 1,000 kg.
The production target for tobacco has been worked out at 0.03 lakh tonne (2,630 kg per hectare).