The happy story has surfaced in a report by the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC), which said paddy output will rise by a whopping 13.7 percent in 2011/12 compared to last year. MoAC is yet to make the report public. [break]
Production projection for major cereals made by MoAC shows that the productivity of paddy that accounts for around 21 percent of the total agricultural gross domestic product (AGDP) went up by 11.1 percent to 3.3 kg per hectare. Paddy plantation areas this also edged up slightly by 2.3 percent to 1.53 million hectares this year.
Given the share of AGDP in total GDP at 35.7 percent and paddy carrying maximum weight in AGDP, officials said the government can easily meet the economic growth target this year. The government has set a target of 5.5 percent economic growth for the current fiscal year.
“The analysis of data that district agricultural development offices have forwarded shows encouraging findings,” said a source. For example, the data shows per capita paddy production this year will hit 190 kg (based on 26.62 million population), which is a sharp rise over 170 kg recorded last year.
The source said a favorable climate, higher productivity coupled with increased volume of fertilizer and a rise in production area are the key factors behind the impressing growth in cereal production this year.
Apart from paddy, MoAC says the production of maize, which is the third largest cereal crop in the country and carries 6.88 percent in AGDP, is going to grow by 5.4 percent and touch 2.17 million tons this year.
Its report elaborates that the productivity of maize has gone up by 9.6 percent and farmers are getting a yield of 2.5 tons per hectare. “Production area of maize, however, has dropped by 3.8 percent this year to 8.71 million hectares,” said the source.
MoAC also projects the production of millet to rise by 4.1 percent to 315,067 tons this year. Its productivity this year has gone up by 1 percent and is yielding 1.13 tons per hectare. Farmers planted millet in 278,030 hectares this year, which is some 3 percent higher than the area under millet cultivation last year.
The government has projected the production of buckwheat to grow by 13.3 percent to 10,021 tons. Its productivity has soared by 13 percent and touched to 0.96 tons per hectare.
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