Contingency Crop Planning for 100 Districts in Peninsular India

Abstract

Agriculture in India depends heavily on south west monsoon as it contributes 75% of the rainfall. In the last decade, the country witnessed two wide-spread drought years. In 2002, the advancement of monsoon witnessed intermittent delays and the coverage over the entire country could happen only by 15th August. In 2009, despite the early onset of monsoon and its coverage over the entire country by 15th July, the year recorded the lowest mean annual rainfall of less than 700 mm. Any deviation from the normal rainfall pattern seriously affects production of food grains, fodder availability to livestock, supply of raw materials to agro-industries, livelihoods of rural workforce and reduces food grain supplies to the central pool for public distribution. It leads to increase in prices and inflation and finally affects the share of agriculture in GDP. Delays in monsoon or mid-season breaks have been addressed by the Central and State governments by implementing contingency plans, particularly for droughts. On the recommendation of the Consultative Committee of Parliament on Agriculture, Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture in 2010 undertook the preparation of country-wide contingency plans at the district level to meet aberrant and extreme weather situations in crop, livestock and fisheries sectors involving several research institutes of ICAR and all the State Agricultural, Horticultural and Veterinary Universities. Over 300 plans have been prepared so far up to Kharif 2012 season which are made available to the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture. Another 200 district plans are in the process of preparation. These plans are quite exhaustive containing all information on the district agricultural profile, different farming situations and contingency plans for all possible weather aberrations like droughts, floods, cyclones, unseasonal rains, heat wave and cold wave etc. in agriculture and allied sectors. However, it has been decided to present the operational part of these plans related to drought in a concise manner to help and meet the prevailing aberrant monsoon situation of 2012 in peninsular India. An attempt has been made to suggest alternate crops with appropriate short-duration cultivars suited for delayed monsoon in each vii of the 100 districts and also contingency measures for optimum crop and soil management to alleviate stress in standing crops due to early, mid and terminal drought situations. The authors thank the guidance and encouragement received from Dr S. Ayyappan, Secretary, DARE and Director General, ICAR, and Shri Ashish Bahuguna, Secretary (Agriculture & Cooperation), Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture. We thankfully acknowledge the contribution and support of all the nodal officers of SAUs in these four states and Director and scientists of NBSS & LUP, Nagpur and Bengaluru for providing district soil maps. It is our earnest desire that these contingency crop plans will be immediately useful to the concerned states in guiding the line departments to help farmers to cope with drought situations. These plans need to be updated periodically by the SAUs with current information and new technology options available from research in their states.