Food grain production registers significant increase in Tirupur district

Food grain production witnessed a boom in Tirupur district during the just ended 2014-15 financial year when compared to previous fiscal.

According to the statistics jointly compiled by the Departments of Agriculture, Revenue and Statistics, the area coverage of all the prominent agriculture crops have gone up significantly during 2014-15 financial year.

Deputy Director of Agriculture A. Mahendran told The Hindu that the increase in the acreage was due to better rainfall when compared to the previous fiscal and to effective transfer of latest technologies to the farm.

Going crop-wise, paddy, one of the main food grain crops, was raised over an area of 11,007 hectares in 2014-15 fiscal which was 3,468 hectares more than the total acreage achieved in 2013-14 fiscal.

The Agriculture Department officials were of the opinion that acreage of paddy could have been at least 2,000 hectare more if the water was released from Amravathi Dam in December.

In the case of pulses, it was bountiful harvest in 2014-15 fiscal as the acreage touched 23,064 ha against the target of 22,150 ha set for the period. When compared to the previous fiscal, the cultivation area increased by an additional 4,000 hectares.

Among the pulses, red gram, green gram, horse gram, black gram and Bengal gram were cultivated mostly in the district.

Similarly, area coverage of millets too increased remarkably during 2014-15 with 64,688 ha brought under the crop. During the previous fiscal, area coverage under the crop was 55,995 ha.

In the case of oilseeds, the acreage increased marginally to stand at 8,869 ha in 2014-15.

“We feel that the farmers could have raised oilseeds on more area if Avinashi region got early rains in July,” Mr. Mahendran pointed out.