E-Paper
Centre to fund Punjab crop diversification
The Centre may agree to fund ₹7,000 per acre as incentive to paddy growers of Punjab to branch out to other summer crops under a federal crop diversification programme following a meeting between Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and his Punjab counterpart Gurmeet Singh Khuddian in the national capital earlier this week, officials aware of the development said.
The Centre may agree to fund ₹7,000 per acre as incentive to paddy growers of Punjab to branch out to other summer crops under a federal crop diversification programme following a meeting between Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and his Punjab counterpart Gurmeet Singh Khuddian in the national capital earlier this week, officials aware of the development said.
Chouhan met Khuddian as part of a series of meetings with state agricultural ministers to gain insights into the state of farming in various regions. The Punjab minister also raised the issue of growing resistance of genetically modified BT cotton to pests such as pink bollworm, which the variety was meant to tackle.
The current BT variety, which accounts for 99% of all cotton grown in the country, is based on a technology known as BollGuard 2. India approved the technology in 2002, the only transgenic crop allowed so far. Khuddian told Chouhan that farmers needed the next-generation BollGuard 3, one of the officials said. However, the Modi government has so far not approved any GM crop for commercial cultivation.
The Centre has agreed to consider Punjab’s request to fund crop diversification on a per-acre basis instead of bulk transfer of resources, another official said.
Intensive and unsustainable rice farming, which has led to surplus output, have stoked ecological disasters in Punjab and Haryana by depleting groundwater and ruining soil quality. Rice has pushed out other key crops, such as pulses and oilseeds, necessitating imports to meet local demand.
To check over-cultivation of rice, the Centre had launched a crop diversification programme, a sub-scheme of the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, in 2014. Khuddian had requested Chouhan that federal funding should be on a per-acre basis since the Centre had changed the funding pattern of the crop diversification programme to 60:40 between the Centre and states from 2023-24. The plan earlier provided 100% central funding to states.
Chouhan assured timely availability of fertilisers, assistance in crop diversification and also gave approval to the state’s Punjab State Agricultural Statistics Authority, which will help with better evaluation and research in the farm sector, the second official added.
