Thrust On Rabi Crops: State Agriculture Minister Atul Bora

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: In sync with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to double farmers’ income by 2022, the State Agriculture department has laid special emphasis on Rabi crops this year so as to make up the likely fall in paddy yield because of floods.

Addressing a press conference at Janata Bhawan here on Tuesday, State Agriculture Minister Atul Bora said: “The paddy yield may fall this year because of floods that have damaged 2,14,541 hectares of crops and 2,35,179 hectares of arable land affecting 7,98,911 families of farmers in the State. To make up the likely fall in paddy yield, we’ve laid special emphasis on Rabi crops. In 2019-20 the target of paddy production in the State is 67 lakh MT against 57.27 MT (provisional) in 2018-19. The State Government pumped in Rs 35 crore to the department for flood damage this year. This year, we resorted to community nursery activities and paddy saplings have been supplied to the flood-affected farmers from the community nursery beds. Rs 310 crore has been earmarked for farmers for buying agricultural implements. Six lakh farmers of the State will benefit under this, and each farmer will get Rs 5,000 under this scheme. This is not all. As many as 19 soil-testing laboratories are to be set up in the State, besides renovating the 50 existing seed farms. Under its CSR activities, J Farm Service is going to make facilities available for farmers.”

The minister inaugurated an App for the purpose on Tuesday. The minister said that the department is going to introduce an agriculture policy in the State. “There has been no agriculture policy in the State over the years. Now we’re going to introduce one. The draft of the policy has already been prepared. The policy will be sent to the Cabinet soon,” he said, and added: “A horticulture college will be set up in Dima Hasao district. A 400-bigha plot has been identified for the college. An orchid park will also be set up at Kohora near the Kaziranga National Park. Rs 16 crore has been earmarked for the purpose. The Horticulture department is now going to introduce dragon fruit in the State.”

Bora said that the Rs 1,700-crore ($ 262 million including $ 200 million loan from World Bank) World Bank-financed Assam Agribusiness & Rural Transformation Project (APART) is under implementation in the State now. The scheme is a loan from the World Bank with $ 50 million as the State’s contribution and around $ 12-million contribution from the beneficiaries. The major achievements of the project include (i) 22,414 climate resilient paddy demonstrations covering around 30,234 farmers, (ii) market-led, climate resilient production demonstrations of other field crops etc.

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