TN agriculture production declined by 3 pc but the sector’s growth rate is higher than national average, says NABARD

Chennai:

Even as the state food production has declined by 3 per cent, Tamil Nadu has recorded an annual average growth of 4.6 per cent in agriculture sector against the national average of 3.3 per cent, according to National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development’s State Focus paper for XII Five Year plan.

The state focus paper, which was released during a NABARD State Credit Seminar, stated that the net cultivated area reduced to 48.92 lakh hectare area from 52.44 lakh hectare area in 2005-06 against the backdrop of rising population and declining area under agriculture.

“In the last decade alone (2001-2011), population has grown by 15 per cent while the net sown area has reduced by 46,000 hectare and food production decreased by 3 per cent,” the paper said.

Interestingly, large tracts of agricultural lands are being kept fallow by the landowners due to migration, labour problem and other reasons. As per statistics, the current fallow lands which were 7.59 lakh hectare area in 2005-06 has increased to 11.17 lakh hectare area during 2009-10.

The other big issue is that due to urbanization, productive lands are being left unutilized in rural areas.

Interestingly, the state government is planning series of measures to address the challenges and usher in second green revolution to promote farm sector. These include developing agriculture at farm level, by introducing farm level interventions through computer based farm crop management system which would integrate farmers, adoption of technology, crop growth monitoring, pest and disease surveillance and marketing linkages.

The state is also focusing on integrated farming system to manage available resources effectively in view of shrinking land size. As per this model agriculture is integrated with allied activities such as animal husbandry, poultry, aquaculture, sericulture for supplementing and sustaining the income of farmers.

Interestingly, NABARD has suggested that these interventions be implemented in a few clusters by involving non-governmental organizations and farmer collectives.