Cropped area declines 32 per cent in Andhra

Due to adverse seasonal conditions, the cropped area in Andhra Pradesh has so far declined 32 per cent to 5.3 million hectares (ha) compared with the kharif season's normal sown area of 7.9 million ha.

However, agricultural operations are stated to be in full swing, thanks to the recent rainfall in various parts of the state.

The agriculture department has prepared a contingency plan with an amount of Rs 417 crore for promoting alternative crops. The alternative crops proposed are short duration paddy, pulses, jowar, castor, sunflower, horsegram, cowpea and sesamum.

According to an official press release, an amount of Rs 35 crore was released to the agriculture department towards this contingency plan. Due to recent rains, transplantation of paddy is in fast progress. 

The sugarcane crop is at vegetative to grand growth stage, groundnut is at peg penetration to harvesting stage, ragi is at dough stage, sunflower at head development stage and sesamum at pod development to harvesting stage.  With the receipt of recent rains, the crops have recovered from moisture stress, officials told chief minister, K Rosaiah, at a review meeting on Monday.

The area under vegetable crops declined by 18 per cent to 1,10,337 ha as against the normal kharif area of 1,34,983 ha. A contingency plan was being prepared with an outlay of Rs 142.51 crore to cover an area of 50,000 ha with assured irrigation facilities. An amount of Rs 5 crore was released to the horticulture department for taking up vegetable cultivation under irrigated conditions.

Adverse seasonal conditions also resulted in fodder deficit of 1.6 million tonnes and cattle camps are proposed in the districts of Mahabubnagar, Medak and Anantapur. Over 27,000 quintals of fodder seed was distributed on a 75 per cent subsidy basis to promote fodder production by farmers.

The chief minister was stated to have expressed satisfaction that 82 per cent of the targeted crop loans were distributed to the farmers by the end of last month.

Of the targeted Rs 14,000 crore of crop loans, Rs 11,200 crore has already been disbursed so far.