“Agricultural crops have been affected for the third straight season due to adverse weather conditions in last 18 months of the Modi government,” Singh said while addressing a farm machinisation event ‘Agrimach’ here.
In 2014, kharif (summer) crops were affected due to 12 per cent deficit rains, while rabi (winter) crops like wheat got damaged due to unseasonal rains and hailstorm, he said. “This year too, kharif crops were affected due to drought situation in the wake of 14 per cent deficit rains. Now, rabi crops are facing both drought and floods,” he said.
The government is taking measures to reduce the impact of such natural calamities, he said adding “We cannot stop the natural calamities but we can reduce its impact with use of new technologies and contingency plan.” Sowing of rabi crops has begun from October. The ongoing sowing operation of rabi crops has been affected due to high temperature in some parts as well as floods in South India, especially in Tamil Nadu. The total area sown to wheat and other rabi crops is lagging behind at 317.96 lakh hectare till last week of the ongoing rabi season compared with 372.61 lakh hectare in the year-ago period, as per the government data.
Stating the government is promoting farm machinsation in a big way, the Minister said the government has allocated Rs 773 crore for this fiscal under various schemes to encourage farmers purchase about 6.80 lakh farm machineries. Since small farmers cannot afford to purchase costlier machiners, the government has set up custom hiring centres as well as testing centres to check the quality of the machineries, he said.
Singh also said farm power availability need to be enhanced to 2 kilowatt per hectare by 2020 from the current level of 1.83 kilowatt per hectare, for achieving foodgrains production of 280 million tonnes. The Minister also said the government is encouraging foreign farm machineries companies to invest in India and many of them have show interest.
Meanwhile, government asked farm machinery makers to display maximum retail price (MRP), excluding taxes, in a transparent way on their products as levies vary from state to state.
“We are receiving complaints regarding MRP of products like tractors, power tiller and other agricultural machinery, which in this sector is a matter of concern,” Additional Secretary in the Agriculture Ministry, Jalaj Srivastava said at a Ficci event on farm machinisation here. MRP must be given, excluding taxes, on farmers portal transparently, as the taxes vary in different states, he said. Projecting exponential growth of farm mechanisation in near future, he said that the long-term availability of productive and happy-labour in agricultual sector is crucial.
It is forecast that Indian agri-workers are expected to decline to 40.6 per cent in 2020 from 54.6 per cent in 2011. “Thus, there has to be a significant role of farm mechanisation to the extent of taking 50-65 per cent of labour inputs progressively for sustainable agri-growth,” he said.
Srivastava further said the cropping intensity in India has risen with increase in power availability. Also, there is a direct connection between farm power availability and food grain productivity. “From 1951 to 2012 as farm power availability increased from 0.25 to 1.84 kW per hectare, so did the productivity increased from 0.52 tonnes per hectare to 1.92 tonne per hectare,” he said adding that farm power availablitiy in 2020 is expected to be 2.2 kW/hectare and productivity at 2.3 tonnes per hectare.
Cotton exports may grow 18% in 2015-16: Govt
The country’s cotton shipments are expected to rise by about 18 per cent in 2015-16 as against the previous fiscal, the government said on Thursday. Citing estimates of the Cotton Advisory Board, Union Textile Minister Santosh Gangwar said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha: “The exports from India for 2015-16 are expected to increase by about 18 per cent compared with the previous year.”