Ministry jittery over crop-sowing

Jul 24, 2010 - Amit Agnihotri |

New Delhi

The farm ministry is getting jitters over 14 per cent monsoon deficiency in peak of kharif-sowing season even as policy planners are pondering on ways to improve agriculture production in the long-run.

Sources said with sowing operations still continuing in the country, paddy crop in Jharkhand and UP are getting affected due to low rainfall over the region. Owing to the severe drought in 209, which affected around half of the county, kharif output had taken a sharp dip impacting the food security plans of the government. As a result, the paddy crop suffered a loss of around 16 million tonnes. This drop was primarily responsible for plummeting agriculture growth to an abysmal 0.2 per cent in 2009-10. 2008-09 too was an equally bad year for the Indian agriculture in which farm growth was just 1.6 per cent.
Against this background, the Prime Minister’s economic advisory council pegged the farm sector growth rate at 4.5 per cent for 2010-11 fiscal riding on the “assumptions” of a good monsoon. But this may be a tall order given the monsoon vagaries. “So far the indications are that the monsoon would be normal,” C. Rangarajan said.

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