AGRI SECTOR GROWS, BUT CULTIVATION AREA FALLS

If one goes by the Economic Survey of Maharashtra for 2016-17, the agricultural and allied activities sector contributed majorly to the overall growth story of the state. Though the agricultural sector has grown at 12.5%, from a negative 11.2 % in 2014-15 and 4.6 % in the following year, the area under cultivation has fallen.

The sector has also seen a fall in livestock and fishing catch in the past few years, according to the survey.

Despite above-average rainfall in the state during last year’s monsoon, the area under rabi crop is expected to fall by 5% from last year. Though the area under rabi crops (taken between November and March) of the pulses have shown a rise, the area under cereals and oilseeds has decreased by 16 and 24% . The area under kharif crops (taken between June and October) of sugarcane and the area for cotton also declined by 36 and 10% respectively. Though the report does not throw light on the reason for the reduction in the areas under the crops, the experts have attributed it to the high cost of production and lack of irrigation facilities.

The production of kharif and rabi crops, however, have increased this fiscal year. While the foodgrain output rose to 98,41,000 metric tonnes from 50,98,000 MT the previous years, the production of oilseeds reached 48,95,000 MT this year from 20,21,000 MT in 2015-16. Sugarcane, however ,saw a decline in production by 28% over two years.

Experts have attributed the growth to the satisfactory rainfall last year. “The growth rate is computed on the figures from the previous year, which saw acute drought. The government should compare the growth with the figure four years ago when there was satisfactory rainfall. The areas under cultivation have reduced because of the high cost of production against the rate of produce. The government has been boasting the success of the JYS programme, but in fact the groundwater level has dropped substantially,” said Vijay Jawandhia, farm activist and leader of Shetkari Sangathana.

Maharashtra also lags behind Madhya Pradesh,uttar Pradesh,gujarat and Karnataka in terms of crop area.

Surprisingly, contrary to the government claims of rise in the irrigated area owing to the success of the Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyaan, the watershed management project, the report has registered a reduction in the actual irrigated area from 32.46 lakh hectare in 2013-14, 31.37 lakh hectare in 2014-15 to 24.47 lakh hectare in 2015-16. This year the percentage of the actual irrigated area against the potential has fallen to 49.8% from 67.6 and 64.5% in past two years, respectively. Finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said the reduction was owing to the satisfactory rainfall. “The farmers did not utilise the water from the irrigation projects owing to the ample availability of the rainfall,” he said.

Alarmingly, the fish catch and its export is on constant decline The marine and inland fish production, which was 6.08 lakh MT in 2014-15 and 5.80 lakh MT in 2015-16 has dropped to 4.30 lakh MT in 2016-17.