Centre's refusal to cooperate with Bengal to hit wheat production across India

Kolkata: BJP's short-sightedness not to cooperate with Bengal government is going to prove costly for the entire nation as the wheat production would be badly hit with the Centre refusing to allot fund to carry on with alternate farming in areas in the state bordering Bangladesh to prevent the spread of wheat blast disease.

Bengal will be least affected due to the disease as here wheat is cultivated only on 4.5 per cent of its 96 lakh gross cultivable land. But with the Centre not allotting the fund to distribute seeds to grow alternate crops in the bordering areas, the farmers here would start growing wheat leaving a high possibility of the disease to spread to major wheat producing states including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana. "It will not only leave an impact on the sufficient supply of wheat for consumption by the people of India, but also other countries will also refuse to import wheat as usually they do not take wheat from the countries where the crop is affected with wheat blast disease," said a senior official of the state Agriculture department.

The most fearsome wheat disease in recent decades – Wheat Blast – spreads through crop residue and spores that can travel long distances in the air. It sneaked into the bordering districts of Bengal – Nadia and Murshidabad – from Bangladesh in 2016. Top agriculture experts along with officials from the Centre had then visited the area along with state Agriculture department officials to ensure that it does not spread to major wheat producing states in India. Subsequently, "wheat holiday", that is no wheat cultivation, was declared for two years (2016-17 and 2017-18) in the two districts and along 5 km from the Bangladesh border in eight districts. Since there is no legal option to continue "wheat holiday" after two years, farmers were provided with free-of-cost high yielding mustard, maize and lintel seeds to undertake alternate farming on 1.90 lakh hectares of land. The Centre was bearing 60 per cent of the cost with the state to give the remaining cost to provide the seeds to farmers. Seed to grow alternate crops was also distributed in 2019-20 at a cost of Rs 80 crore. But, the Centre has refused to allot funds to carry on the same in 2020-21. This comes when the state Agriculture department wrote to the Centre stating that distribution of seeds is essential specially when farmers are facing economic crisis at the critical time of Covid pandemic.

But, the Centre refused to extend its support to the Bengal government stating that sufficient amount was given under other heads that can be used to provide free of cost maize,

mustard and lintel seeds to farmers.

Criticising such move of the Centre, the state Agriculture minister Asish Banerjee, said: "It is nothing but Centre's politically motivated move as the matter is related to Bengal without realising the vast effect that it would leave on wheat production nationally."

SR Patra, Director of Agriculture, said: "Initially they asked us to bring down the project cost of Rs 81 crore for 2020-21 by adjusting with other projects. We found a way out by getting some money from other schemes so that the Centre and the state needs to give only Rs 17 crore and Rs 11 crore to distribute free of cost seeds among farmers in these areas. But in its recent letter, the Ministry of Agriculture has even refused to give Rs 17 crore as well."

The cost of high yielding mustard and maize is around Rs 480 to Rs 500 per kg compared to that of wheat that is worth only around Rs 50 per kg. "So farmers would incline towards the cheapest one if free of cost high yielding seeds is not provided to them. It will increase the risk of the spread of wheat blast disease," Patra said.