As the government gears up for food security law, the need for grains has never been so crucial. Agriculture secretary P K Basu discusses prospects of farm production in 2011-12, his ministry’s renewed thrust on horticulture crops ? the prime drivers of food inflation for around two years ? and strategies to bring down food inflation through higher productivity, in an interview with Banikinkar Pattanayak. Excerpts:
How do the winter crops look like? How convinced are you of yet another year of record foodgrain production?
Crop condition is excellent. Recent rainfall has been very beneficial for the crops and also for farmers as they save money on irrigation. Areas under wheat and paddy are up. Going by the position as of now, I am quite confident we will be achieving our targets of 102 million tonne for rice, 84 million tonne for wheat and 17 million tonne for pulses, and overall, 245 million tonne for foodgrain in 2011 (crop year through June). It will be of help for food security.
Compared with the last year, there may be some dip in oilseed production because of late rains and lack of rain in parts of Maharashtra and some amount of drought in Karnataka.
Last year, too, we witnessed drought or flood-like conditions in around 150 districts across the country (nearly one-fourth of India), but despite that we achieved a bumper grain output of 241.56 million tonne.
So, for the country as a whole, I am looking forward to another record crop this year.
What about coarse cereals? Winter planting is down by 5.5% so far.
Coarse cereals will be slightly less compared with the last year, but it won?t be drastically less as we are expecting better productivity this year, thanks to good and well-distributed rainfall.
Pulses coverage has decreased so far, compared with the last year. Do you think the country will meet the output target?
Gram is down but there is an increase in areas in eastern belts because of our intervention. Then there are additional areas under pulses which the mission director has taken up. Productivity should be better than last year if we don?t witness a pest attack in the end. So far it?s fine. So, all that put together, I don?t see any difficulty in meeting the target of 17 million tonne. Individual pulse variety may slightly drop, but overall it should be around 17 million tonne this year against a record production of 18.29 million tonne last year.
How has been the weather for the wheat crop?
So far the weather has been very good. Only one thing has to be watched, and that is terminal heat, especially in the month of March. We have sent advisory already. Many of our technical consultants are in the field. They are already in touch with farmers and states on yellow rust control. The same team will work on terminal heat. But the temperature so far is perfect, at plus or minus two degrees of normal, which is ideal. Still in March, sometimes there is terminal heat, but we are ready. We will see it when it comes.
Any special thrust on horticulture?
The general thrust on horticulture has helped us achieve record production. Now that food inflation is in minus and vegetable prices have declined sharply, I think the strategy is working. Encouraged by all this, and also because food inflation was more in such items, we have declared 2012-13 (fiscal year) as the year of horticulture.
We will have two conferences ? like the current kharif and rabi conferences ? one in February and the other in November. February 17 has been fixed as the date of the first conference, when we will discuss planting, material improvement, crop management, while the November one will be on post-harvest management, processing, etc.
Through the year, there will be exhibitions. We will set targets of areas to be covered under horticulture crops and how many nurseries are to be set up, besies evaluating on how many areas are to be covered under micro-irrigations and how many cold storages should be set up. Work has already started on this front.
How important is the farm mechanisation programme for your ministry in the coming fiscal?
It will receive our highest priority, and we have formulated a specific scheme on farm mechanisation and sent it to the Planning Commission. We are yet to get clearance even in principle. Our minister (Sharad Pawar) has specifically written to the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission (Montek Singh Ahluwalia) to consider this. This is the only solution as if you want to improve productivity, you have to improve farm mechanisation. You have no choice. It also brings down the cost of production and contributes to curbing inflation. If productivity increases, that means commodity prices will remain low. If you increase productivity, the cost of producing each kg of the commodity will be less. So, the consumer will also benefit. It?s an effective way of bringing down food inflation.
