Tata trust adopts villages for groundnut cultivation

Under the Green Revolution revival project, the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, Mumbai, has, in a collaborative arrangement with Punjab Agricultural University, has adopted two villages""Badesha and Tibba""in Sangrur.

The project focuses on cultivation of groundnut, for which Sangrur soil is well-suited. The project aims at scaling up groundnut cultivation as paddy causes "excesses" on the land.

Mechanisation of groundnut cultivation operations is an integral part of the Rs 23 lakh project. For this the trust has provided planters, diggers and threshers, three each.

According to Director of Extension Education at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, S S Gill who visited the two villages to oversee the project and to participate in the groundnut "field day" was told by the Trust representatives, Amarjit Lal Sharma and Harinder Chug, that the healthy crop groundnut was a promising start to the project, which also focuses on "water management and hardy weeds" both part of the adaptive research component of the project. For extension activities and demonstration purposes, groundnut crop is sown on 40 acre in two villages. The crop is closely monitored by village level workers under PAU and Trust.

Gill said groundnut fetches good price in the market. It was Rs 1,520 per quintal last year. The farmers of the two villages have been assured of compensation if groundnut was sold below minimum support price.

In Punjab, groundnut is sown on nearly 4,300 hectare with a production of around 3,600 tones (2004-2005). The average yield of groundnut in the state is 905 kgs per hectare.

Gill said the improved varieties for irrigated traits SG99, M522 and SG84, as well as for rain fed M548 areas are rich in oil content.

He said besides selling groundnut straw, farmers could save by extracting oil for domestic use and also use the groundnut cake for the livestock.

He further said given the yield potential of the recommended varieties of groundnut, farmers could recover up to 60 kgs kernels from one quintal groundnut and extract about 21 kgs. Oil from these kernels, which could be used for domestic purposes. This will effect financial savings.