Land under Wheat shrinks by 36% in Rajasthan

JAIPUR: Following exceptionally poor monsoon and dipping water table across the state, Rajasthan government has reduced the land under wheat cultivation drastically by 36%.

According to an agriculture department official, the land for wheat cultivation in the ensuing Rabi season would be 13.89-lakh hectares as against 21.97-lakh hectare last year. "Out of 33 districts, 26 have been declared scarcity hit due to scanty rainfall. The input cost is likely to rise substantially as irrigation facilities are hard to come by. It will force farmers to divert their focus from cereals to cash crops like mustard which requires comparatively less water," he said.

It's not only in Wheat. There is an overall shrinkage in the total cultivation area in this Rabi season. While it was 73.66 lakh hectares last year, the state government has targeted just 61.17 lakh hectares this year marking a drop of 16%," the official said.

As per the government estimates, the mustard acreage has also gone down from 27.38 lakh ha to 24.54 lakh ha. On the contrary, there is likely to rise in mustard acreage. "There is likely to be 10% rise in the acreage as farmers are shifting focus from wheat to mustard.

Reason - mustard needs only 2-3 rounds of water as against wheat's requirement of 5-6 rounds. Also, rainfall in the mustard growing belt comprising Alwar Bharatpur, Dausa and Sawai Madhopur has been above average. Farmers are going fast on sowing mustard as 70% of the target has already been achieved. This year the production is likely to cross 45 lakh tonnes," the official added.

The state agriculture commissioner J C Mohanty said that the government has made elaborate arrangements to meet the fertilizer and Urea requirements of the farmers. "We have a stock of 3 lakh tonnes Dye Ammonium Phosphate (DAP), 9.50 lakh tonnes Urea and 2.50 lakh tonnes of other chemical fertilizers to treat around 50 lakh ha of area under cultivation for the Rabi season. With the onset of sowing this month we are supplying around 1.17 lakh tonnes of DAP to the farmers across the state," he said.

The state cooperative department too has swung into action to provide farmers with easy loans. Rajasthan Cooperative department minister Parsadi Lal Meena told ET that twenty-nine central cooperative banks have been given targets for loan disbursement. We are going to distribute agricultural loans worth Rs 1000-crore to farmers through cooperative societies and banks for procurement of quality seeds, proper irrigation facilities and fertilizers. We are providing short-term loans to farmers through more than 5,200 village service cooperative societies across the state. The disbursement of loans has become easy with the wider use of cooperative Kisan Card. So far 28.66 lakh farmers have been sanctioned kisan credit cards through cooperative department," he said.