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A detailed contingency plan has been prepared by the ministry of agriculture as part of Kharif 2014 planning for the states to meet different situations arising out of delayed/deficient rainfall, prolonged spells of drought, excess rainfall etc.
According to officials, a combined meeting of state and central government has been held to discuss the ensuing strategy. While contingency plans for 449 districts in 23 States are ready, the states of Karnataka, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, which have higher frequency of drought, have been put on high alert. These states have been asked to be prepared with sufficient seeds of short duration varieties of kharif crops and timely placement of inputs such as seeds and fertilizers.
The meeting also held crop-specific strategies for higher production of kharif rice, pulses, coarse cereals and oilseeds. Officials said that there is a problem of shortage of soyabean seed as the availability is lower by about 7 lakh quintals as compared to their requirement. In order to augment availability of soyabean seed, various initiatives have been suggested to create awareness campaign, identification of farm saved seeds, and use of seed planters and dibblers.
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As an overall strategy, the planning for Kharif 2014 has to focus on eastern India for cereals, crop diversification in North-Western Region and coverage of higher area under pulses and oilseeds along with adequate administrative and financial back up to farmers
There are proposals of subsidy to given to replace old varieties of paddy with hybrid rice, use of farm saved seeds and drum seeder in Uttar Pradesh, to promote direct seeded rice in Jharkhand, hybrid rice cultivation in Odisha, zero tillage of rice in West Bengal.
More area under millets is one of the main agenda for Kharif 2014. The Centre for excellence for millets established in Tamilnadu has been given the mandate for increasing acreage under irrigated maize and productivity enhancement by use of millets/maize boosters should be promoted and rice area should be diverted in maize in Haryana. Officials said s per the plan, for enhanced production of millets, detailed plan has been suggested to states. As per the plan, there is a need to popularize foxtail millets under rainfed conditions and rice fallow ragi where pulses could not be grown in Tamilnadu; single cross hybrids maize for higher productivity and quality protein maize in Jharkhand. Towards this, subsidy at the rate of 75 per cent of the total cost of the production will be given to develop hybrid maize in Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
As a plan to cut down loss in production of current Rabi crops due to likely spells of sporadic rains, states have been suggested o ensure that after harvesting the produce is immediately shifted to a warehouse or a protected area. This could be done through proper utilization of rural godown facilities available at primary level cooperative society, promotion of FPOs & PPP model for procurement, pledge loan facilities to farmers by negotiable warehouse receipt at mandi level and availability of godown under state warehousing corporation be made to farmers on priority.
