Scanty rain affects food output in Maharashtra

Erratic rain is going to bring down Maharashtra's kharif food production by 60 per cent, which will result in a loss Rs 1,000 crore to around 11 million farmers in the state.

Monsoon arrived in the state on schedule, which is the first week of June but then remained non-existent till the last week of July, resulting in a dry spell of more than 50 days. This reduced acreage under kharif crops substantially.

As per the figures released by the state government's agriculture ministry, the average area under cereals like paddy, jowar, bajra maize, ragi etc. is around 52,580 lakh hectares but this year sowing was undertaken by the farmers only on 30,385 lakh hectares.

Similarly area under pulses also got reduced to 16,667 lakh hectares, which just 62 per cent of the average area on which sowing takes place.

Even in the areas where sowing has taken place, production is going to go down substantially as there were no rains for almost two months.

However, paddy production is not going to get affected as the Konkan and Eastern Vidarbha which are rice bowls of the state received near normal rains, pointed out a senior official from the state agriculture department.

For last few years average Khariff production of the foodgrains from the state is around 155 lakh tonnes which we expect now to be between 92 to 100 lakh tons, he added.

However since last week of July state is receiving good rains and we expect this will help to bring more area under rabi cultivation. Normally rabi production of food grains is around 90 lakh tons in the state, we expect it grow up to 110 tons, compensating the losses in Khariff season to some extent, he said.