The government expects that with favourable weather conditions the wheat output in the current season would cross 75 million tonne.
Briefing the mediapersons at the sidelines of the 65 th general council meeting of the National Cooperative Development Corporation in Delhi on Wednesday, Pawar said ; ?This is one of the best year for wheat production. The cold weather is favourable. We expect wheat output to cross 75 million tonne.?
He, however, said that the cold weather and frost have caused damage to mustard crop, mangoes and grapes in some areas.
He the culling of birds in the avian flu affected West Bengal was almost complete. The government would work out two separate revival packages ? one would be exclusively for West Bengal where 75% of the affected were small backyard poultry farmers and other would be for the poultry industry which have suffered from the downturn in sales and prices on account of the incidence of bird flu in West Bengal.
While appreciating NCDC for its ?spectacular? performance, Pawar asked this apex financial institution in the cooperative sector to re-orient its decision making process to respond to fast emerging challenges.
He emphasized that large investments would be required to achieve 4% annual growth of the farm sector in the XI Plan. Though the annual growth rate has shown a rising trend in the last two years, reversing the deceleration experienced during the previous Plans would need further mobilizing resources, creating infrastructure, facilitating easy availability of inputs, organizing research and technology development, institutional support services and putting in place contingency measures to safeguard crops from natural calamities.
The cooperative sector would have to play an important role in this endeavour, the minister said. NCDC has chalked out an ambitious programme of Rs. 19640 crore for the XI Plan. The NCDC has shown record performance on all major parameters in 2006-07.