April 18, 2020
Agriculture Ministry focuses on driving growth in coarse cereals, pulses and oilseeds. With a prediction of favourable monsoon this season, the Agriculture Ministry is targeting a record production of 298.3 million tons of food grains for 2020-21, reasonably higher than the 291.95 million tons estimated for 2019-20.
According to a presentation made by Agriculture Commissioner Suresh Malhotra at a National Conference on Agriculture-Kharif 2020 Campaign recently, though rice and wheat production targets were minimally higher than the previous year, the major focus is on driving the growth in coarse cereals, pulses and oilseeds.
To review the ongoing rabi or winter season harvest and layout prospects for the coming kharif or summer cropping season and travel restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, agriculture Ministry’s annual meeting was held via videoconferencing. Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar also had a discussion in detail with State agriculture departments, briefing them on the measures taken to ensure a smooth and safe rabi harvest in the midst of the lockdown.
Expecting a normal rainfall
A few days back, the India Meteorological Department issued its first forecast for the monsoon, predicting normal rainfall, with a chance of above normal rain in August and September.
The main kharif season crop is rice, and the Agriculture Ministry is targeting a harvest of 102.6 million tons, slightly higher than the last kharif season harvest of 101.95 million tons. However, it has lowered its rice production target for the next rabi season to 14.9 million tons. This means that the total rice production target for 2020-21 is 117.5 million tons, barely higher than the previous year’s target of 117.47 million tons.
Wheat production is also expected to remain steady, with a 2020-21 target of 106.5 million tons, in comparison to the previous year’s estimate of 106.21 million tons.
The Agriculture Ministry hopes to ramp up production of coarse cereals this year, but admits that the challenge is how to create demand for nutricereals or millets. It is targeting a harvest of 48.7 million tons in comparison to the previous season’s 45.24 million tons.
With regard to pulses, the target is 25.3 million tons compared to the previous season’s estimates of 23 million tons, with the entire increase projected to come from the kharif season.
Oilseeds will remain major priority
Oilseeds are a major priority, especially due to the disruption in edible oil imports caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The targeted harvest is 36.64 million tons, in comparison to the last season’s estimates of 34.19 million tons. One challenge could be a shortfall in supply of soyabean seeds to the tune of 3.2 lakh quintals, due to unseasonal rains at the time of harvesting the seed crop.
The Ministry has also created an action plan for oil palm plantation, given the disruptions in imports. It hopes to cover 31,500 hectares with about 45 lakh seedlings this year, with the bulk of the plantation in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.