Despite several challenges that the State’s agriculture sector has been witnessing, food grain production – which witnessed a massive fall during 2016-17 – is showing signs of recovery.
Production, which dropped from 113.85 lakh tonnes (MT) during 2015-16 to 52.38 lakh MT, is expected to be 109.37 lakh MT (third advance estimate) during 2017-18, the State government has stated in its policy note. The production was 101.52 lakh MT during 2011-12, 56.05 lakh MT during 2012-13, 110.02 lakh MT during 2013-14 and 127.95 lakh MT during 2014-15.
“During 2016-17, due to various natural impediments such as the failure of the south-west as well as the north-east monsoon, non-release of Cauvery water from Karnataka, poor storage position in all major reservoirs, Cyclone Vardah, and most importantly severe drought, the State witnessed lesser area under major crops besides damage to the standing crops, and hence, food grain production reached a low level of 52.38 lakh MT in 2016-17,” the note stated.
However, apart from the special packages announced for Cauvery delta districts, no specific reason was cited for the expected rise in food grain production.
The note also stated: “In the coming years, the food production is going to be more challenging due to burgeoning population, difficulty in horizontal expanse of land resources [sic], escalating cost of critical inputs, climate variability, environmental degradation, dwindling production resources, labour scarcity and volatile market prices, etc.”
‘Govt. unfazed’
However, the State government which was “unfazed” by all these constraints was formulating crop-specific, season-specific, soil-specific, climate-specific and farm-specific approaches for making agriculture more dynamic and climate-resilient to ensure food and nutritional security, it stated.
Since Tamil Nadu is a water-scarce State, the available water should be used for crop irrigation on a priority basis, it stated.
“Keeping the novel idea of conserving the irrigation water and bringing quality produce, the government is taking intensive efforts to popularise the micro irrigation system which helps in bringing more crops per drop,” it added.
