The diktat of government not to cultivate maize to access investment support for agriculture did not work with a large number of farmers in Telangana as they have already raised the crop over 68,000 acres.
But, the government had something to cheer as the acreage of maize was far short of 3.69 lakh acres as on date last year, according to the weekly bulletin released by the Agriculture Department on Wednesday. Sources said the bank accounts of maize farmers were credited with the investment support of ₹ 5,000 an acre despite a strong warning to them. With at least 15 rainy days so far in Telangana since the monsoon struck the State on June 10, the agricultural operations have picked up so much that they were double the area covered by this time last year. A minimum of 2.5 mm rain in a day is considered rainy day in Agriculture Department parlance. The area covered by all crops so far was 63.18 lakh acres against 37.36 lakh acres as on date last year.
Agriculture Secretary and Commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy said rain was consistent, uniform and staggered. Except Nirmal district which received less than average rainfall, there were 25 districts that had excess rainfall, and six districts normal. The area of coverage has also doubled for almost all the principal crops, including paddy, cotton and red gram. Paddy was in transplantation stage for 3.85 lakh acres against 1.26 lakh acres by this time last year. The red gram was 6.87 lakh acres against 3.35 lakh acres and cotton 45.02 lakh acres against 24.22 lakh acres last year. The doubling had eluded soyabean as it was sown over 3.63 lakh acres against 2.10 lakh acres last year.
Among the other major crops that had high rate of sowing was jowar with 88,134 acres against 49,523 acres, and green gram at one lakh acres against 67,838 acres.
Meanwhile, the Agriculture Department officers huddled into a virtual conference on Tuesday to discuss promotion of seed cultivation in villages. Called ‘seed village’ concept, the programme envisages supplying foundation seed of paddy and red gram for mass cultivation. The department will monitor the cultivation and arrange buyback of seed by seed development corporation.
