In a desperate measure to haul up its food crop production, the Kerala government may shoulder the interest burden on agricultural bank loans. The State Cabinet is expected to decide on the extent of this commitment this week.
It is understood that State Planning Board, in a taskforce report, has recommended measures to tackle the urgency of tackling Kerala?s food security crisis. The report moots that the interest on farm loans should be met as subsidy by State government. A special package on this is getting tailored.
However, the State government needs to rationalise how much of its farm sector outlay can be ciphoned for such a motivational excercise, a senior government official told FE.
The State Planning Board is also coming out with quantitative production targets for crops like paddy and commodities like milk and meat, to reduce food-related dependency on neighbouring States. Milk is sourced from dairies in Karnataka. Following better dairy management, milk output in Malabar division of Milma (Kerala?s dairy arm) has shown palpable improvment, sources said.
Out of the State?s 30 lakh tonne annual rice off take, only six lakh tonne is produced within Kerala. The rest is brought from Andhra Pradesh. Aggravating the crisis, the Centre had last month cut the State?s rice quota by 80%.
Besides, the State government has also been advised to be stringent on the diversion of paddy land to real estate activities. In the next session of the State Assembly, the LDF Government is also considering passing the bill to enforce paddy cultivation in the abandoned paddy fields. The area under paddy drastically declined from over 800,000 hectares in early 1970s to nearly 200,000 hectares in 2000s. This was due to various factors like shortage of farm labour and resistance to mechanisation in the last two decades.