Rabi season cultivation likely to dip

JAIPUR: The agriculture scenario for the Rabi season does not look good for the state. After an almost no show for Kharif, the overall cultivation statistics for Rabi season indicate a dip. The land under Rabi cultivation this season will be close to 61 lakh hectare, 14 lakh hectare less than last years 75 lakh hectare, a plunge of 18.6%.
The state agriculture commissioner J C Mohanty said, "This year the land under cultivation has shrunk.Rabi crops are dependent entirely on irrigation facilities and this year owing to a bad monsoon our reserves don't have enough water to cultivate the same amount of land as we did last time around. We will end up cultivating close to 14 lakh hectare less this time."
With 26, of the 33 districts declared scarcity-hit due to scanty rainfall, the impact was on the cards. All this is going to hike input cost substantially as irrigation facilities are hard to come by. This will force farmers to divert focus from cereals to cash crops which requires comparatively less water.
"We will be asking the farmers to look for alternative crops which require less water, they can opt for mustard or gram," says Mohanty. The reason being mustard needs only 2-3 rounds of water as against wheat's requirement of 5-6 rounds.
This makes wheat the worst-hit crop of the season. Owing to high water demand the state government has drastically reduced the land under wheat cultivation from close to 22 lakh hectare to a moderate 14 lakh hectare, a whopping dip of 36%.
Mustard on the other hand is being promoted but still might see a decrease in the cultivable land, as per the government estimates, the mustard acreage will go down from 27.38 lakh hectare to 24.54 lakh hectare. "We'll try to keep it to the same level more or less, but the dip, if at all, will be marginal," says Mohanty. He's quick to add that the rainfall in mustard-growing belt, comprising Alwar, Bharatpur, Dausa and Sawai Madhopur, has been above average.
The policy to promote mustard is will push the farmers to sow more mustard and this is showing results as an agriculture department official says that farmers are going fast on sowing mustard and that 70% of the target has already been achieved. "This year, production is likely to cross 45 lakh tons," the official added.
While the area is being curtailed the government has made elaborate arrangements to meet the fertiliser and Urea requirements of the farmers. Mohanty assures that there won't be any dearth of fertilisers for the farmers. He assures that the state has adequate fertiliser stocks. "There is enough stock of required fertilisers, with the onset of sowing this month we are supplying around 1.17 lakh tonnes of Dye Ammonium Phosphate (DAP), and others too will be provided," he asserts.
As the season beings it is being learnt that the state cooperative department has swung into action to provide farmers with easy loans. It is learnt that the Rajasthan Cooperative department has assigned targets to 29 central cooperative banks for loan disbursement.
The state will give out agriculture loans worth Rs 1,000 crore to farmers in around 5,200 villages and so far 28.66 lakh farmers have been sanctioned kisan credit cards through the cooperative department.