Normal rain might mean 6% agri growth, says Aayog member

6% would be the highest for the farm and allied sector in the Gross Domestic Product series launched with the base year of 2011-12

The country’s agriculture and allied sector’s growth could jump five-fold in 2016-17, to six per cent, if there’s a normal monsoon this year, said NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand.

Six per cent would be the highest for the farm and allied sector in the gross domestic product series launched with the base year of 2011-12, against the earlier one of 2004-05.

The farm sector had contracted by 0.25 per cent in 2014-15 and is estimated to have grown 1.2 per cent in 2015-16. It was 4.2 per cent in 2013-14.

Annual expansion has been less than two per cent in the first four years of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17) against a target of four per cent. This was largely due to droughts in 2014 and 2015, pulling down agricultural production and leading to overall distress in rural areas.

Recent weather predictions indicate the El Niño weather phenomenon, which caused the droughts, is on the wane. With a normal monsoon, the area under crops will increase and so will the productivity.

Foodgrain production in crop year (July-June) 2014-15 fell to 252 million tonnes (mt) from 265 mt in 2013-14. The 2015-16 crop is estimated at 253 mt.

Chand said NITI Aayog would undertake a project in five villages in Bihar, with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, on raising the productivity of pulses.

He said he supported the spread of genetically modified crop varieties, to boost farm production.