VIJAYAWADA: The authorities have set a target to grow kharif crops on 94.20 lakh acres in 2021—four per cent more than the area covered last year.Paddy cultivation will be taken up on 39.50 lakh acres, similar to the area covered in 2020.
The focus seems to be on increasing the cultivation area of crops such as red gram, black gram, chilli, etc. According to sources in the agriculture department, as per the kharif plan for the marketing season in 2021-22 food grains (paddy, jowar, bajra, maize, ragi, minor millets, coarse grain, red gram, black gram, green gram, horse gram, and other pulses) will be cultivated on 53.68 lakh acres, and the expected production is 94.01 lakh metric tonnes.
Oil seeds will be grown on 19.72 lakh acres, out of which 18.40 lakh acres will be used for groundnuts. The oil seeds’ output this season is expected to be 8.34 lakh metric tonnes.As per the statistics available with the agriculture department, in kharif 2020 out of 90.86 lakh acres sowed, paddy alone accounted for 39.55 lakh acres, followed by groundnut (18.43 lakh acres), cotton (14.92 lakh acres), chilli (3.43 lakh acres) and sugarcane (1.31 lakh acres).
This time, groundnut will be cultivated on 18.40 lakh acres, cotton (kapas) on 14.81 lakh acres, chilli on 3.69 lakh acres and sugarcane on one lakh acre. Red gram, which was cultivated on 5.47 lakh acres last kharif, will be grown on 6.62 lakh acres.
Compared to 0.11 lakh acres in 2020, jowar will be cultivated on 0.66 lakh acres, bajra on 0.82 lakh acres (against 0.68 lakh acres), minor millets on 0.53 lakh acres (against 0.38 lakh acres), onions on 0.51 lakh acres (against 0.49 lakh acres). Acreage under maize will be brought down to 2.51 lakh acres from 2.84 lakh acres.
Govt sets paddy procurement target at 45 lakh MT
The state government has set a target to procure 45 lakh metric tonnes of paddy for the 2020-21 rabi season at Rs 8,600 crore. So far, 25,25,927 metric tonnes of paddy have been procured from 3,49,206 farmers at Rs 4,729 crore, said Civil Supplies Commissioner Kona Sasidhar
Register with e-panta: Min
Agriculture Minister K Kannababu has asserted that every paddy grain will be procured. Reviewing the paddy procurement in the state with officials on Thursday, he requested farmers to have their names registered with e-panta. This would prevent farmers from other states from selling their produce in AP. He said the focus is on expanding micro-irrigation in 1.5 lakh hectares at an estimated Rs 1,190.11 crore