Foodgrain production has fallen in Gujarat: Congress

Siddharth Patel, senior Congress MLA in the assembly expressed his concerns over the decreasing production of food grain in the state, during the discussion over the budgetary demands for the state agriculture department.

The state agriculture minister Dileep Sanghani did not contradict Patel, but in a reply to his concerns, showed him the increase in crop production of oilseeds, groundnut, cotton and banana.

Patel gave the figures in the house and said, "State government has entirely ignored the agriculture sector and farmers in the state. All the government programmes and policies do not favour the farmers' and are against them. There has been a 97% reduction in the budgetary allotment of funds for the foodgrain development along with a steady reduction in the land coverage of foodgrain crop."

He added, "In the year 2007-08 the foodgrain production in the state was 82.06 lakh tonnes, which was reduced to 63.45 lakh tonnes in 2008-2009 and in 2009-2010 it was only 56.05 lakh tonnes. So there has been 38-40% reduction. Moreover, per capita foodgrain production has been reduced in the last 30 years. In 1980-81, Gujarat's population was 3.4 crore and the per capita production was 145kgs, which has reduced to 93kgs after 3 years."

On the contrary, the agriculture minister Sanghani put forward future plans for the development of agriculture in the state.