Shift from paddy to other crops on 7.5 lakh acres : The Tribune India

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Shift from paddy to other crops on 7.5 lakh acres

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 29

Under crop diversification, the area under paddy cultivation has been considerably reduced, with nearly 7.5 lakh acres shifted from paddy to alternative crops during the 2019 kharif season. Notably, the area under non-basmati paddy during this season was 57.27 lakh acres as compared to 64.8 lakh acres during the 2018 kharif season.

Lauding the efforts of the Agriculture Department, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh said this initiative would go a long way in conserving water as paddy was a water-guzzling crop.

Current status

Now, about 3 lakh acres is under cotton cultivation, 1.27 lakh acres under maize, 2.95 lakh acres under basmati and 17,500 acres under cultivation of fruits and vegetables.

He said the government wanted to shift 7 lakh acres more from paddy to cotton, maize, basmati, fruits and vegetables with a view to restoring the water balance in the state. He said the Agriculture Department had already shifted 7.5 lakh acres from paddy to other crops this year. This included about 3 lakh acres under cotton, 1.27 lakh acres under maize, 2.95 lakh acres under basmati and 17,500 acres under fruits and vegetables.

Drive to reduce use of agrochemicals

Highlighting the major initiatives undertaken by the Agriculture Department this year, Viswajit Khanna, Additional Chief Secretary (Development), said in addition to the crop diversification, the department had also launched a vigorous campaign in kharif-2019 to motivate farmers to reduce the use of agrochemicals, especially nine agrochemicals that had a negative impact on the quality of basmati. This had brought encouraging results as the chemical residue level in basmati was found to be below minimum residue level (MRL), he said. Following this initiative, the state farmers had produced high quality basmati crop and got remunerative prices of their produce despite weak international sentiment owing to restrictions on export to Iran, which is a major market for Punjab basmati.

To ensure judicious use of fertilisers, 24.30 lakh soil health cards had already been issued to farmers after testing their soil health and the farmers were requested to apply need-based fertilisers as per PAU recommendations, informed KS Pannu, Secretary Agriculture, Punjab.

Pointing to the drastic reduction in consumption of urea and DAP, Pannu said the consumption of urea in the kharif season was 13.75 lakh tonnes as compared to 14.57 lakh tonnes in 2018, thereby saving Rs 49.20 crore of farmers on this count. Similarly, the consumption of Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) had also registered a decrease of 33,000 tonnes, which was 1.42 lakh tonnes during the season this year as compared to 1.75 lakh tonnes in the 2018 kharif season.