Crop production down by 7.6%

The production of cereal crops is expected to go down by 7.6 percent in this current fiscal year 2012/13, according to Ministry of Agriculture Development (MoAD).

According to the preliminary food grain report released on Thursday, MoAD expects that the production of cereal crops will fall to 8.74 million tonnes in this fiscal year while there was a production of 9.46 million tonnes last fiscal year.

Speaking at a press conference organised at MoAD, spokesperson Prabhakar Pathak said the production of the crops will decline due to unfavourable monsoon rains during the plantation season of paddy, wheat, maize, millet, barley and buckwheat.

The crops were cultivated in 3.34 million hectors of land this fiscal year while the cultivation was witnessed in 3.48 million hectares last fiscal year.

Similarly, the production also declined by 4 percent to 2,613 kg of crops in each hectares of land this year while the productivity stood at 2,714 kg per hectare.

It is estimated that the production of paddy will go down by 11.3 percent to 4.50 million metric tonnes farmed in 110,000 hectors of land this year while the production stood at over 5 million metric tonnes.

Similarly, the production of maize is also estimated to fall by 8.3 percent to 1.99 million metric tonnes. The millet and buckwheat production will also dip by 2.5 percent and 0.3 percent respectively this year.

However, the production of wheat will increase by 2 percent to 1.88 million metric tonnes this year from the previous 1.84 million metric tonnes while barley will increase by 6 percent this year.