State expects record rice production

The Orissa government expects to achieve record production of rice despite 17 districts of the state being ravaged by unprecedented floods recently.

The devastating floods in Orissa last month damaged standing crops spread over three lakh hectares in 17 out of the state’s 30 districts, while it submerged an area of four lakh hectares.

According to conservative estimates, crops worth Rs 700 crore were damaged in the floods, said Arabinda Kumar Padhee, director for agriculture and food production of the Orissa government.

However, he said that the state would post record production of rice as good crop conditions in other parts of the state would help the state to reach the record level of production. Padhee was here to attend the agriculture review on ten districts of south Orissa and he released a news letter of the agriculture department on the occasion.

The government had targeted to produce about 72 lakh metric tonnes of rice in the kharif season of 2008 but taking into account the crop loss owing to the devastating floods, the rice output may be reduced to 70 lakh metric tonnes, Padhee pointed out.

In 2007-08, the rice production in the state had reached the record level of 76.14 lakh tonnes. While the production of rice in the last kharif season was 68.26 lakh tonnes, production during the last rabi season was 7.88 lakh tonnes.

Despite record production of rice, Orissa’s rice yield per hectare was 1.70 tonnes as against the national average of 2.1 tonnes per hectare.

For the first time in the last year, the state produced surplus food grains, Padhee claimed. While the requirement of food-grains in the state for the projected population of 4.09 crore in the state was 85.67 lakh metric tonnes, the total production of food grains stood at 92.13 lakh metric tonnes with a surplus of 6.46 metric tonnes, he added.