UB Group, PAFC incentives for Punjab barley farmers

The Punjab Agro Foodgrain Corporation (PAFC) and the UB group have announced incentives for farmers who grow the high-yielding VJM 201 barley under contract farming.

Farmers who grow VJM 201 barley in plots of five acres and above will get Rs 50 per quintal more than the minimum support price (MSP) while it will be Rs 25 more for those growing the crop in less than five acres.

The PAFC and the UB group entered into an agreement in 2002 to increase the crop area under malting barley in Punjab. About 2,000 farmers grow barley in Patiala, Mansa, and Bathinda.

In the first year of the contract, barley was sown on 1,000 acres, later increased to 5,000 acres in 2004, for which seeds were provided by the PAFC.

The yield of VJM 201 barley is 17 per cent higher than the conventional PL 426 barley, as certified by Punjab Agricultural University. VJM 201 is generally resistant to diseases.

UB Managing Director Kalyan Ganguly said, "The reason why we are offering a cash incentive is because for the first time, we have been able to get malting barley of international standards. Earlier, the barley we got was essentially of feed quality. In 2005, our target is to undertake contract farming of barley in 10,000 acres and further increase it to over 40,000 acres in the next three years."

Punjab Agro has announced it has surpassed the target for contract farming of new and high-yielding varieties of maize for Kharif 2005 and has covered more than 57,700 acres against the target of 54,000 acres.

In Hoshiarpur alone over 25,000 acres have been brought under the contract farming of maize. The other districts which have benefited from this are Nawanshahar (8,629 acres), Ropar (9,000 acres), Jalandhar (7,896 acres), Kapurthala (1,205 acres), Gurdaspur (2,500 acres), Patiala (1,650 acres), Ludhiana (600 acres) and Fatehgarh Sahib (700 acres), Punjab Agro sources said.