Late monsoon leads to drop in food grain output

The agriculture sector, which would have otherwise registered a higher growth, ended at 9.1% because of the restraining effect of the negative growth of -5.1% in the allied sectors, reveals the economic survey on Thursday.

The negative growth is attributed to the late arrival of monsoon in Vidarbha and Marathwada. The erratic monsoon led to a delay in sowing major kharif crops by three weeks and also the total coverage area adversely. 

Though the state and central governments have been claiming the huge increase in the production of food grains, the economic survey has estimated around 23% decline with the production falling to 118.09 metric tonnes (MT) in 2011-12 against the production of 154.19 lakh MT the previous year. The oilseeds and cotton production too is likely to decrease by 8% and 15% respectively.

The production of the cereals and pulses has dipped by 21% and 23% respectively. The requirement of the cereals and pulses for the state based on the per capita income is 132.06 lakh MT and 11.90 lakh MT respectively, against which the production has been 96.92 and 21.17 % in the current fiscal.

Similarly, the production of bajra, moong, tur, groundnuts also has declined by 29%, 34%, 16% and 21% respectively.
The production of rice, ragi and niger seed has increased by 3%, 20% and 38% respectively.