Bumper wheat, barley production

Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, May 16

The country has produced 971 lakh metric tonnes (MT) of wheat and 19.8 lakh MT of barley so far. The figures are as per the second estimate of the Centre.

The production figures are likely to be revised as procurement is in progress in several states. In 2016-17, the country had produced 985 lakh MT of wheat as compared with 923 lakh MT in 2015-16. As for barley, 17 lakh MT was produced in 2016-17 and 14.3 lakh MT the preceding year.

Scientists of the Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research (IIWBR) said area under wheat had reduced by about 4 per cent this year, but per acre of production had increased.

GP Singh, Director, IIWBR, told The Tribune: “With 319.8 lakh MT of wheat production, Uttar Pradesh is at top in the country followed by Punjab (166.3 lakh MT), Madhya Pradesh (149 lakh MT), Haryana (111.4 lakh MT) and Rajasthan (92 lakh MT).”

With barley production of 10.2 lakh MT, Rajasthan is at top. Uttar Pradesh is at second place with a production of 4 lakh MT followed by Madhya Pradesh (2.8 lakh MT) and Haryana (1.2 lakh MT).

“Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan witnessed an increase in barley production, whereas Uttar Pradesh witnessed a downfall,” Singh said.

“The sowing of high-yielding varieties and hard work of farmers are reasons for bumper production this year. Awareness about yellow among resulted in a few cases of the disease,” he added.