NEW DELHI, Sept. 22. The States have on the whole accepted the targets of additional food production set for them in the emergency food production programme. The programme, drawn up by the Union Ministry of Agriculture to offset the losses in this year’s kharif crop on account of drought and floods, envisaged an additional production of about 16 million tonnes of foodgrains during the coming winter and summer. The Agricultural Production Commissioners of States at a meeting here to-day gave an assessment of the kharif prospects and reported the steps taken in the States to realise the additional targets. Mr. T.P. Singh, Union Agriculture Secretary, who presided, told pressmen later that the States were confident of realising an additional yield of between 14 million tonnes and 16 million tonnes if the weather played fair. The emergency production programme envisaged an extra production of 8.75 million tonnes of wheat, 4.5 million tonnes of summer rice, 2 million tonnes of gram and about a million tonnes of jowar and bajra. The Production Commissioners felt that targets for wheat and summer rice were on the higher side. Mr. Singh, however, appealed to them to take a bolder view of the summer rice programme in the light of the encouraging results of last year.
