Anticipating normal monsoon, Odisha sets 10 mn tonne food grains target

Anticipating normal monsoon, Odisha government has set a target to produce 10 million tonnes of food grains in the ensuing Kharif season. 

As per the plan, the Kharif production target will be covering 5.11 million hectares of land with a yield rate of 2030 kilogram per hectare. The sowing of Kharif starts with the onset of monsoon. 

Officials said, the 2018 southwest monsoon is expected to be good and would give an impetus to the farming. This year, the southwest monsoon, according to the India Meteorological Department, is projected at 97 per cent of the long period average with a model error of plus and minus five per cent. 

In the cereals bracket, rice production is expected at 8.58 million tonne with the productivity of 2450 kilogram  per hectare, spreading over of 3.5 million hectares of land. Others cereals include 0.961  million tonne of maize and 0.143 million tonne of Ragi with a yield of 3005 kg and 895 kg per hectare respectively. 

Similarly, the output of pulses during the crop season  2018-19 is estimated to be 0.67 million tonne including 0.218 million tonne of Arhar and 0.166 million tonne of Mung . The state government has set a target of 0.35 million tonne of oilseeds, 4.10million tonnes  of vegetables and 0.45 million tonnes of spices during 2018-19. 

The yield for oilseeds and vegetables is pegged at 776 kg per hectare and 13466 kg per hectare respectively. 

For 2018-19, Odisha has set aside an outlay of Rs 167.75 billion for agriculture. The agriculture budget among other things, has a provision of Rs 4.7 billion towards interest subvention. The budget for this fiscal also proposed to provide credit linkage to 50,000 Joint Liability Groups through cooperative banks and primary agriculture cooperative societies (PACS) with funding support from the National Bank for Agriculture & Rural Development (Nabard).