Uttar Pradesh, currently battling a deteriorating law and order situation and growing farmers’ protests over land acquisition, has something to cheer about — it has been rated among the best in terms of performance in improving overall foodgrain production in the last five years, along with Punjab, the country's grain bowl.
Both the states managed to raise the output of foodgrain by over 10 million tonnes (mt) during this period. Uttar Pradesh produced an all-time high 47.55 mt foodgrains in 2010-11, as against 43.19 mt a year ago, an increase of almost 10 per cent. Punjab scaled up its foodgrain production to 27.89 mt from 27.32 mt.
Uttar Pradesh contributed 20 per cent of the country’s total foodgrain production of 235.88 mt in 2010-11. It produced 13 per cent of the country’s overall rice output last year, higher than that of the combined output of Punjab and Haryana. It also contributed 35 per cent of the total wheat production, 13 per cent of the pulses output and eight per cent of the coarse cereals yield in the country in 2010-11.
The state managed to increase its rice production by 11.4 per cent, wheat by 9.6 per cent and pulses output by 18.6 per cent between 2009-10 and 2010-11. The state’s achievement in improving the overall foodgrain production will be rewarded by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by a special ‘Krishi Karman Award’ later this month.
Farm loan disbursal in the state also increased by about 41 per cent in the last one year to Rs 33.134 crore. Uttar Pradesh will go to assembly polls in 2012 and the Mayawati government is facing charges relating to the law and order situation and land acquisition. “It took massive initiatives in inter-cropping of pulses especially urad with sugarcane, jowar and bajra and expanded the area under hybrid maize,” a senior government official said.
“The state also took great strides in improving the area under pulses and improving the seed replacement ratio,” the official said. Among the other states whose performance has been found to be remarkable include Assam, Orissa, Tripura, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and for pulses Maharashtra and Rajasthan.