Cultivation of hybrid rice is to be promoted in a big way by offering heavy subsidies in areas where the paddy yields have reached the plateau. This will help lift the rice production and productivity to the next higher level from the record 83.25 million tonnes bagged in the last kharif season.
The National Food Security Mission (NFSM) has set the target of expanding the hybrid rice cultivation to 3 million hectares by 2011-12 from around 2 million hectares at present.
According to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Director General Mangala Rai, the hybrid rice produces between 1 and 1.5 tonnes more rice per hectare than the available conventionally-bred high-yielding rice varieties.
The present countrywide average rice yield is only around 2.12 tonnes a hectare though it is as high as 4 tonnes a hectare in Punjab and around 3 tonnes in Andhra Pradesh.
China’s rice revolution was driven primarily by hybrid rice, which was developed there in the early 1970s. The country had extended the cultivation of hybrid rice to more than half of its total paddy land by 1990 to emerge the world’s largest paddy producer.
India also initiated efforts to develop its indigenous hybrid rice technology in the 1970s but the research work got a real boost only by around 1990. A large number of rice hybrids have since been developed by the ICAR research network and the private companies and released for commercial cultivation in different parts of the country.
A major constraint in the expansion of hybrid rice production in India is the high cost of the hybrid seed because of the complex technology involved in its production. Besides, the farmers need to buy fresh seed every year.
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Only around 5 per cent of the country’s total paddy acreage of over 40 million hectare could, consequently, be brought under hybrid rice cultivation till now. About 450,000 quintals of hybrid rice seed will be needed to cover 3 million hectares under such rice.
The NFSM has come forward to subsidise the production as well as the sale of hybrid seed to make it affordable for the farmers. The hybrid rice seed producers in the private as well as public sector will be given a subsidy of Rs 1,000 per quintal, according to official sources.
Private seed companies will also be entitled for this subsidy which will be routed through state level agencies after the approval of the state food security missions.
An additional subsidy of 50 per cent of the seed cost (with a ceiling or Rs 2,000 a quintal) will be provided to the seed distributors to supply the subsidised hybrid rice seed to the farmers.
The NFSM also proposes to encourage the agencies to hold hybrid rice cultivation demonstrations to familiarise the farmers with agronomic practices involved in growing hybrid rice. A subsidy of Rs 3,000 per demonstration is being offered for this purpose.
Such demonstrations are, however, planned to be confined only to the areas where the entire rice acreage has already been saturated with high-yielding varieties. The crop output in such areas is tending to stagnate as the scope for raising the crop productivity with conventional varieties is rather limited.
The hybrid rice has a potential to raise the production by 15 to 20 per cent in these tracts.