With Bihar experiencing early monsoon, the agriculture department aims to distribute subsidised seeds to registered farmers including at their doorstep by June 25 to ensure early sowing of paddy as part of the state’s climate resilient agriculture programme. It is also encouraging crop diversity to guard farmers against losses caused by damages to conventional crops due to exigencies of weather.
The department has set the target of distributing 113,000 quintal seeds (mainly paddy) for the kharif season, of which, 37,000 quintal has been distributed including delivery of around 10,000 quintal at farmers’ doorsteps, a programme launched last year.
Officials in the department said 1.443 million farmers have applied online for subsidised seed or its home delivery. Last year in the kharif season, 53194 quintal subsidized seed was distributed among 680,466 farmers, including delivery of 3,805 quintals of seed to 49,241 farmers at their doorstep.
“Our subsidised seeds distribution programme plus the doorstep delivery of seeds to farmers has evoked huge response especially in the last one month during the lockdown. We have kept the target of providing seeds to 1.50 lakh farmers at their doorstep this year in the kharif season, which is much higher than last year,” said N Saravana Kumar, secretary, agriculture department. The seed distribution budget this year is ₹90 crore as against ₹76 crore last year, officials said.
Kumar said the department is hoping for a good kharif crop this year due to early rains and the government’s impetus on seed distribution to help farmers sow the paddy crop early.
“If there is early sowing, the harvesting of kharif crop will be timely and will subsequently, help in early sowing of the rabi crop. We are expecting to check the stubble burning by farmers by ensuring the timeline of crop cycle is maintained. We have managed to bring about a change in mindsets by explaining the advantages of early sowing to farmers,” Kumar added.
Bihar is targeting to produce around 7 million metric tonnes of rice in 30.37 lakh hectares of land this fiscal. Last kharif season, the state produced 6.827 million metric tonnes of rice, 435,000 metric tonnes of maize and 48,500 metric tonnes of pulses, as per the third estimate released in April this year.
Besides, the agriculture department is this year providing subsidized seed for coarse cereals like soyabean, linseed, sesame so that farmers take up multi crop production in kharif and rabi seasons. “Our emphasis is to enable farmers to go for crop diversity to tackle any exigency like floods, drought or damages to conventional crops,” said another agriculture officer.
Bihar government has procured 456,000 metric tonnes of wheat till June 15 from farmers in the current rabi season. On Wednesday, chief minister Nitish Kumar, expressed happiness over the higher procurement of wheat.
“In my review meeting on June 12, there was an expectation that 350,000 metric tonnes of wheat would be procured by June 15. But it is a matter of joy that 456,000 metric tonnes has been procured. This is an encouraging achievement. We will increase the procurement of wheat and rice more next year so that farmers get proper prices,” Kumar said. He said ₹6,736 crore was given to farmers for procurement of 3.558 million metric tonnes of paddy this year.
Bihar had extended the deadline of wheat procurement from May 31st to June 15 due to low procurement. The state was targeting to procure 7 lakh metric tonnes of wheat following harvesting of rabi crops this year.
