Coarse correction in UP agriculture

State govt offers 50% subsidy on high-yielding seeds of barley, millets ; says it wishes to reverse dominance of paddy, wheat

The Uttar Pradesh government says it has decided to push the cultivation of coarse cereals, for various good reasons. It specifically mentions maize, millets (both jowar and bajra) and barley (‘jau’) in this regard. At present, these four cereals are sown on close to two million hectares or 9.7 per cent of the 20.5 mn ha of the state’s cultivated area. The output of these four during 2016-17 was 4.7 mt or a little under nine per cent of the state’s 55.7 mt in foodgrain.

Surya Pratap Shahi, the state’s agriculture minister, recalls that coarse cereals were once extensively grown in UP. However, with the advent of the ‘green revolution’, paddy and wheat became dominant. “Coarse cereals are rich in nutrition and need less water to grow. These are also in high demand by the food processing industry for the production of healthy snacks, such as cornflakes. However, our farmers do not grow (much of) these,” he said.

He says the government wants to widen by 200,000 ha the sowing of different foodgrain crops, including coarse cereals, in this year’s kharif season. “We would provide subsidised seeds and market support to farmers for coarse cereals, including government purchase on the lines of paddy and wheat, to provide remunerative prices and encourage them to stick to these crops,” he explained.

Recently, the government cleared a proposal for subsidising half the cost of high-yielding seeds of coarse cereals. The aim is to double the distribution of such seeds in 2018-19, from 5,500 tonnes to 11,000 tonnes. During 2016-17, the state government had distributed about 510,00 tonnes of foodgrain seed, of all varieties. It has also asked the Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur, to develop grain varieties which need less water to grow.

The central government has already said it wishes to include millets in the Targeted Public Distribution System; it has notified these as ‘nutri-cereals’. During 2017, the area under cultivation of coarse cereals in the country was estimated at 25 mn ha, higher by a little less than one per cent over the previous year. Studies have shown that higher consumption of these cereals is a cost-effective way of alleviating the micronutrient deficiencies among a majority of Indians. It would also cut down greenhouse gas emissions associated with agriculture.

Around 500 million Indians are estimated to suffer from deficiencies in proteins, iron, zinc and vitamin A. The lack is more in urban areas, especially in low income households. Rural homes have more diversity in cereal consumption. In the mid-1960s, before the Green Revolution, millets are estimated to have been cultivated on almost 37 Mmn ha. Later, the government focused on high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice, leading to a reduction of 40 per cent in the area under coarse cereals.