PATNA: For the first time in agriculture, Bihar which is facing nature's fury every now and then, is all set to adopt the Climate-Friendly mode of agriculture as a pilot project.
The agriculture department, acting on CM Nitish Kumar’s idea, has come out with a comprehensive roadmap for starting ''Climate Friendly" (CF) mode of agriculture in eight districts of Bihar.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar toyed with the idea of starting "Climate-Friendly" mode of agriculture in 2018 while speaking at a function of the agriculture department.
Nitish Kumar had said "50 per cent of total standing crops are destroyed by nature fury like flood or drought or storm every year in Bihar."
"In such topographical conditions, the Climate-Friendly mode of agriculture would be highly suitable and beneficial to the farmers. The agriculture department ought to prepare a comprehensive road map on this", Kumar said a year ago during an agricultural function.
According to official sources, the department took a year for proper consultation and to study the feasibility. It has now come out with a roadmap.
As a pilot basis, 40 villages from eight districts namely Madhubani, Khagaria, Bhagalpur, Nalanda, Banka, Munger, Nawada, Gaya and others have been selected for the CF mode of agriculture.
After successful implementation and orientation of this scheme in 8 districts in first phase, nine other districts would be covered in the state, following a well-researched crop cycle developed by experts of many agriculture institutions including Indian Agriculture Research Institute.
As per official figures, Rs 60.65 crore would be spent on this pilot project during the initial fiscal year of 2019-20 to 2023-24 .
The department has allotted Rs 13.93 crore for the first initial year to start the project. Altogether six types of crop cycles have been prepared for round the year climate-friendly crops.
"If this mode of agriculture is adopted in a full fledged way, the farmers would get an enhanced output of their crops from 5 ton per hectare to 12 ton per hectare”, an official said.