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Rabi foodgrains target at 161 mt.
Sep 29, 2023

The government on Tuesday set rabi foodgrains production target at 161.2 million tonnes (mt). The national target for total food grains production for the 2023-24 (July-June) crop year is 332 mt.

As per the government’s third crop estimate, India’s foodgrain production in 2022-23 is pegged at 330.5 mt.

The agriculture ministry has kept a target of achieving a record wheat output of 114 mt in the 2023-24 rabi season against the output of 112.74 mt (as per the government’s third advance estimate) in 2022-23. Sowing of wheat, the main rabi or winter crop, begins in October along with other crops. Harvesting of the stable commodity starts in March-April.

While the Centre targets to bring 60% of the total wheat area (30 million hectares) under the climate-resistant varieties amid constant changes in weather conditions.

'There are certain changes in climate change, which is affecting agriculture. Our focus is on climate resilient seeds,' union agriculture secretary Manoj Ahuja said on Tuesday while addressing a national conference on Rabi crops to chalk out sowing strategies.

India last year had witnessed extreme heat waves that took a toll on crop quality and output, especially on the wheat crop and uneven distribution of monsoon rain this year hampering kharif crop plantation.

He also stressed up on the need for making India self-sufficient in producing pulses and oilseeds amid their shrinking production over the past couple of years.

'The priority of the government is agro-ecological based crop planning for diversion of land from excess commodities like rice and wheat to deficit commodities such as oilseeds and pulses and high value export earning crops,'

For the forthcoming rabi season, pulses production target has been set at 18.1 mt and oilseeds production target at 14.5 mt.

The department set a target to produce 29.2 mt and 44 mt oilseeds in the entire season.

Pulses production in 2022-23 has been 27.5 mt and oilseeds output 40.9 mt, as calculated by the department in its third advance estimate.

Agriculture Secretary Ahuja said, 'The strategy would be to increase the area through inter-cropping and crop diversification and productivity enhancement through introduction of high yielding varieties and adoption of suitable agronomic practices in low yielding regions.

To address the concern over large yield gaps in crop production, the government earlier set a vision to make the country self-sufficient in pulses and oilseeds production. For pulses, the department proposed to achieve the target of 32.5 million tonnes by 2025.

'Special projects such as inter-cropping, targeting rice, expansion in high potential districts and non-conventional regions will bring additional area under oilseeds. All this will increase domestic production of annual edible oilseeds from the current level of 36.2 to 54.1 mt and edible oil production from 8.5 to 13.6 mt by the end of 2025-26,' according to a government release. 'The renewed focus will help in reducing the import dependency from 56% to 36% in the next 5 years.'

Fertilizer secretary Rajat Kumar Mishra stressed on the need for a timely supply of fertilisers and balanced use of crop nutrients as fertiliser is one crop input after water that influences production.

He mentioned that nano urea and DAP fertilisers are the future.

The conference was held to review and assess the crop performance during the preceding crop seasons and fix crop-wise targets for rabi season in consultation with state governments, ensure supply of critical inputs and facilitate adoption of innovative technologies with a view to enhance production and productivity of the crops.

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