Battling with a surging inflation rate, the government has some reasons to cheer about as food production during 2007-08 is tipped to reach all time high of around 231 million tonne.
The government on Wednesday revised the food production estimates by saying that the country would produce 230.67 million tonne, up from 217.28 million tonne achieved in the previous year.
According to fourth advance estimates released by the ministry of agriculture, the food production grew by 6.6%. The earlier estimates released in April pegged the food production at 227.32 million tonne.
?Reasonably good monsoon and quality inputs provided by various agencies of government have been the primary reasons for rise in food production,? PK Mishra, secretary, Ministry of agriculture said.
According to the data, wheat production has risen by about 3.41% to 78.4 million tonne during 2007-08 from 75.81 million tonnes achieved during 2006-07. Rice production rose to 96.43 million tonne from 93.55 million tonne, while pulses output also firmed up by 6.40% to 15.11 million tons from 14.2 million tonne during the year.
The estimates also reveal that despite government recently banning maize exports for controlling rising prices, the production of maize increased to 19.31 million tonne during 2007-8 up from 15.10 million tonne achieved during previous year. ?There were many ministries like commerce and agriculture involved while making the decision to ban exports of maize. With the increase in production we will have a re-look at the issue,? Mishra said.
The significant increase is seen in oilseeds production, which spurted by 18.64% to 28.82 million tonne. Cotton output increased to 25.81 million bales in 2007-08 from 22.63 million bales in the previous year, the estimates said.
He also said that there has been increase in use of high yielding varieties of seeds across states like Bihar, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh due to measures taken under National Food Security Mission.
On the announcement of minimum support price for crops other than paddy for the coming kharif season, Mishra said that the Economic Advisory Council is discussing the issue and would announce the MSP soon.
He also said that despite good monsoon, there are several districts in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka that have witnessed deficient rainfalls. ?The monsoon is yet to cover the entire country, hopefully these rain deficient areas would receive adequate rains,? he said.