Jharkhand prepares to fight drought

Production of kharif crops, mainly paddy has been adversely affected in all 24 districts of the state due to scanty rainfall. The state government has constituted district-level task forces comprising officials of agriculture, water resources and disaster management departments to visit districts to estimate the losses because of poor monsoon and suggest ways to mitigate it through alternate crops.

During April to June this year, against a normal rainfall of 263 mm, the entire state received only about 127 mm, a deficit of 52 per cent.

Till July 15, the state had received 104 mm rainfall against a normal average of 325 for the entire month.

Official statistics mentioned, out of 79 lakh hectares geographical area of Jharkhand, the net cultivated area is around 22 lakh hectares and the area under forest is 29 per cent (23 lakh hectrares).

According to this statistics the state of Jharkhand comes under agro-climatic zone 7 and in zone 12 and 13 as per agro-ecological characterization of the country.

Official record says, 9 per cent of the area of the state is irrigated. Some years ago, the state used to receive rainfall of 1,200 – 1600 mm per annum at both the monsoon.

Earlier years,the annual rainfall in the plateau and sub-plateau was 1,400 mm on an average of which 82.1 per cent was received during the periods June to September and the rest during remaining months.

According to a team of World Bank (WB) report released in 2007 on, “Jharkhand addressing the challenge of inclusive development”, the major thrust for agricultural development has to come from the development of irrigation. Given the insufficient rainfall, very low area under irrigation, poor productivity and drought conditions, water resources need to be developed urgently.

The yield level as well as cropping intensity are much lower than the national average for both rice and non- rice crops with largely untapped opportunity for winter cultivation, due to lack of irrigation facilities, the cropping intensity is low (114 percent compared to the national average of 134 percent).

There is significant scope for area expansion, given the large share of fallow land (17 percent of the total cultivable land), WB report says. However, agriculture department officials said in 2011-12, the state made a record in production of 64 lakh tonne foodgrain, mainly paddy. The WB report also says, a considerable increase in food production over the past three decades, was largely supported by rainfed agriculture.

The decade of the 1980s was largely one of the stagnation in agricultural production, while improvement became pronounced from the early 1990. Crop agriculture is largely restricted, however, to rice, which is cultivated mainly during the kharif (rainfed) season.

The state has done well in increasing foodgrain production during the period 1973- 74 to 2003- 04 as reflected in higher growth rate (3.27 per cent) than the national average (2.4 percent) improvement in yields has significantly contributed to this increase.

Meanwhile, cabinet secretary N N Pandey said that that meteorological department had predicted that from mid-July onwards rainfall would pick up. But the damage to the paddy crop has already been done. Hence the state cabinet has decided to step up production of foodgrain through alternate crops of cereals, maize etc. The cabinet also decided to ensure payment of last year’s crop insurance benefits to farmers, besides promoting new crop insurance policies this year through Large Area Multi Purpose Societies (LAMPS) and Prime Agriculture Credit Societies (PACS).