Mustard acreage in Haryana shrinks

Despite the remunerative minimum support price (MSP) and sagging demand for edible oils, farmers of Haryana are drifting away from mustard cultivation over the past few years. The data compiled by the state agriculture department reveal that the area under mustard cultivation was 708,000 hectares in 2005-06. In the next year (2006-07) it shrunk to 597,000 hectares and subsequently to 499,000 hectares in 2007-08.

The minimum support price (MSP) of mustard was set at Rs 1,715 a quintal last year and the farmer could get about Rs 2,700-3,000 per quintal for mustard in the open market. Due to low domestic production of oilseeds, the price of mustard is more than the MSP in the open market. But this failed to attract more farmers, and rather, the area has been shrinking.

Talking to Business Standard, Dheeraj Singh, head of the department of plant breeding, Haryana Agriculture University, Hissar, said adverse climatic conditions had been one of the reasons for the deviation of the farmers from growing mustard.

“In the past 25 years the stable climate encouraged farmers to grow mustard in Haryana. The state has 10 per cent of the total cultivable area under mustard and contributes 15-17 per cent of the national production. But in the past three years, frost and hailstorm affected the farmers very badly, who cultivated mostly in the southern belt of Haryana. The temperature between zero and two degrees adversely hit the crop and resulted in a 25-30 per cent loss.”

As the crop is not under the national agriculture insurance scheme of the Centre, the farmers did not get any compensation.

Also, over the years, the per capita productivity of wheat has increased. A farmer gets 44 quintals per hectare of wheat as compared to 20 quintals per hectare of mustard, which makes wheat a favourable crop, according to Singh.

According to sources, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has been trying to persuade the Centre to consider bringing mustard under the national agriculture insurance scheme.