Production and yield of rice(paddy) in India and neighboring countries

Production and yield of rice(paddy) in India and neighbouring countries during the year 2014, as per Food and Agriculture Organisation(FAO) are given below.

Country area harvested(HA) Production(tonnes) yield(tonnes)

China (mainland) 30,300,870 206,507,400 6.81
Bangladesh 11,319,490 52,325,620 4.62
Myanmar 6,790,000 26,423,300 3.89
Sri Lanka 881,000 3,381,000 3.84
Bhutan 20,359 76,621 3.76
India 43,855,000 157,200,000 3,58
Nepal 1,486,951 5,047,047 3.39
Pakistan 2,890,646 7,002,832 2.42

Yield in India is just a little over half of the yield in China and much less than that of Bangladesh. The main reason for low yield is shortage of water. For increasing yield, irrigation should be increased. Government has no control over rainfall but has the capability for maximum utilization of surface and ground water. The state and central governments should immediately start work on linking rivers in the country not only for purposes of irrigation but also to manage floods.

If India’s yield of food grains is as much as that of China, world hunger could be wiped out completely.

Tackling worst drought in Tamilnadu

If I am in power, I will take the following steps to over come the impact of drought,

1. Not only remove all restrictions on digging bore wells but will also encourage and assist people to dig bore wells. Ground water level will go down but this does not matter, as when it rains the water level will automatically come up. Government will also dig bore wells near water bodies like lakes, canals etc.
2. Wherever and whenever it is possible, artificial rain(cloud seeding) will be tried.
3. Water areas like wells, rivers, lakes, canals, water passages will be dredged which may lead to more ground water
4. farmers will be advised to refrain from planting crops like paddy which require a lot of water and cultivate drought resistant crops like ragi
5. Without any elaborate application from farmers, their lands will be provided with drip irrigation system and sprinkler irrigation system.
6. Panchayat, municipal and corporation waste water will be treated and used for irrigation.
7. As a long term measure, desalination plants will be established along the coast.

MANIFESTO FOR ELECTIONS TO TAMILNADU LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY(2)

1. AGRICULTURE AND IRRIGATION

The government will procure all the vegetables that could not be sold to the public from producers at a guaranteed price of Rs.10/- per kg for tomato and Rs.15/ per kg for brinjal. Rates will be fixed for other vegetables treating these as base prices. Procurement price for paddy will be fixed at Rs.1800 per quintal. The prices of agricultural produce are very low and unremunerative and there is a need to increase the prices.

The wages of unskilled agricultural and other laborers have gone up from Rs.35 per day to Rs.150 per day in the last few years for women and from Rs.70 per day to Rs.350- Rs.400 per day for men. This is a welcome correction of wage level. The employers have got used to this high wage level. Similarly consumers will get used to higher prices of agricultural produce particularly since our government will provide jobs to all able bodied and willing people by undertaking massive works like digging lakes, canals, wells, laying roads,  power transmission lines, solar power stations, hydro-electric power stations etc.

government would set up a separate Ministry for irrigation. In addition to constructing new dams and canals, this ministry would have the following responsibilities;

i.Linking rivers in the state.

iii.Creating links among lakes and between lakes and rivers.

1. looking after the Lake management including deepening lakes and continuously desilting them
2. Creating new lakes to ensure that each village has a lake
   vi. Looking after Water management including draining rain water in pits and other shallow water into the nearby lakes. Water left in pits evaporates and it does not recharge ground water. When lakes have sufficient water, underground water will be recharged.

vii. Keeping the lakes and rivers clean

viii. Cleaning waste water and then using the same for irrigation without letting into the lake. This will ensure that lake water is not contaminated and this water can be used for drinking after purification.

1. Cleaning river banks and ensuring that no garbage is dumped there
2. Sanctioning loans for digging irrigation wells including bore wells. If lakes have water, digging wells will not lower the water table. It is wrong to ban new bore wells,
3. Tamilnadu receives around 100 cm of rainfall per year on an average. If the rainwater is harvested to the maximum extent possible, two- three crops can be raised in most of the places. Tamilnadu will become surplus in food grains under our government.

xiii. While supplying water to people from reservoirs/rivers hundreds of kilometres away is welcome, this is not as reliable a source as local lake water.

xiii. Each district would have a senior water resources development officer with technical staff and with adequate powers to sanction construction of lakes and related work

The per capita production of food grains (rice, wheat, coarse grains and pulses) in India is less than 200kg per year while in the world it is over300 kg. This means that India’s performance in agriculture needs to be improved vastly. In India among the various states, Tamilnadu’s performance is very poor. During 2009-10, India produced 218 million tonnes for a population of around 1180 million. The per capita production is about 185 kg per year. Tamilnadu state produced about 8.0 million tonnes for a population of about 67 million people, which works out to a per capita production of only 120kg per year.

India’s production went up from 176 million tonnes in 1990-91 to 218 million tonnes in 2009-10 which works out to about 24%increase in 20 years. This increase itself is low. But increase in Tamilnadu is very much lower at 8% from 7.4 million tonnes in 1990-91 to only 8.0 million tonnes in 2009-10.

With the policies of our government, agricultural production will increase atleast by 100% in 5 years.

Water is a renewable resource. The ground water automatically gets recharged as it rains and there is no problem in exploiting ground water. There is no question of excessive exploitation as once the water dries underground there can be no exploitation. Moreover, the dangers of flood will be minimized when there are more open and borewells and lakes as the recharge of ground water and lakes will take much of rain water leaving lesser water to flow into the rivers.

Subsidies to farmers will be gradually reduced; if necessary by increasing the prices of their produce.

restrictions on exploitation of ground water will be removed.

To meet the labour shortage in agricultural sector, there will be further mechanization-in sowing, planting, weeding, harvesting, thrashing etc.

Restrictions on farmers and others for removing soil from the lakes for use in fields, brick kilns etc. and the lakes will be removed as this will lead to desilting of lakes free of cost.

While the quantum of rainfall in a year has not changed much, the rainfall has not been timely. In order to ensure timely rainfall, it would be useful to resort to cloud seeding and simultaneously to undertake research on refining the existing technology to achieve lower cost, safety, avoid pollution, avoid lower rains during the period subsequent to cloud seeding. Research by as many universities as are willing would also be funded by the government. Cloud seeding is not new to Tamilnadu, as it had already undertaken several times in the past starting from 1960s in Nilgiris district, though there was a long break after 1960s. Several countries, particularly in Asia like Thailand, China etc are resorting to cloud seeding. Each district would have one organization to undertake this operation. It can be a public or private organization.

Desilting lakes and rivers

Every year silt is deposited in the lakes and rivers. As the silt level increases  the quantum water the lakes and rivers hold decreases. This will naturally lead to floods if the rain is heavy. In the past, farmers and others used to remove soil from the lakes for use in fields and the lakes were  desilted without any effort  or expenses from the government. Now there are avoidable restrictions on removing silt from the lakes.  If restrictions are removed or reduced, many brick kilns will deepen the lakes enabling the lakes to hold more water, thus minimizing /preventing floods and providing more water for irrigation. As regards rivers, sand is deposited in the lakes by the water coming into the rivers. There are more restrictions on removal of sand from rivers.  Government should consider removing these restrictions or   selling the silt and sand to the consumers without any hassle.

Integrating old system with the modern government machinery

The old system of village elders dispensing justice should be integrated with the present day judiciary by introducing jury system. Similarly the services of village elders in the matter of administration of the village should be integrated with the current village administrative system by appointing honorary village munsifs(village administrative officers) and kanakkapillais who used to do the surveying work. The local people should be used extensively in maintaining law and order. Home Guards and Honorary Police officials should form part of the local Police. Village elders should also be involved in maintaining water bodies, augmenting supplies by judically draining rainwater into the water bodies like lakes and rivers, and releasing water for irrigation. People should be actively associated with new projects like production and supply of biogas on cooperative basis, generation of electricity from wastes etc. In short village people and elders should be associated with the activities of the government right from the planning stage. Partly, this will mean more and wider powers for the village panchayats.

Inflation and economic Development

It is important to create demand for goods and services before the products are made in India and services sector is established. How do we create demand? By putting money into the hands of as many people as possible. If we take various sectors of the economy, agriculture sector is the one where more than 50% (nearly 65%) of the people are engaged. If those in the agricultural sector are to have surplus money to purchase additionally produced goods and services, the prices for the agricultural products should be increased for farmers and the wages of agricultural labourers should be increased. This will mean:

1. When prices of onions, tomatoes, rice, wheat etc go up, there should be no agitations against the price rise
2. There should be no ban on exports of these items

• There should be no permission for imports of these items

1. There should appropriate storage facilities  to store surplus production and there is no distress selling
2. Farmers should be employed full time i.e. at least for 8 hours a day. This will require farmers to take up allied work like dairy farming, poultry farming, goat and sheep rearing, honey  making, rope  making etc. or intensive farming like multiple crops, good irrigation, etc.

People not engaged in agricultural sector will suffer with increased prices. To remove their sufferings their wages should also be increased. Their wages otherwise  also will go up with large scale demand from farmers and farm workers for the manufactured goods leading to higher profits for factories which in turn will lead to higher wages.

How to keep India Clean?

Some of the things to be done to keep India Clean are:

1.Making available funds to local bodies:

a. for setting power plants using garbage either departmentally or through private participation

b. for settimg up manure plamts

c.for setting up plants to recycle glass items, iron & steel items, plastic items, paper &paper products or setting up plants on private participation

d. for setting plants for Cleaning dirty water for use in irrigation

e.for putting up Pay & Use toilets in markets, bus stands, play grounds,, etc. and for buying land for putting up toilets

f. for buying dustbins, trucks with mechanical devices for loading and unloading of garbage

2. imposing heavy fines for spitting, urinating etc.

3. using solid garbage for filling land

Food Security-expansion of irrigation

Total world production of cereals increased from 2353 million MT in 2007 to 2566 million MT in 2012 i.e by 9.1% in 5 years while the population during this period went up by around 6% only. Thus the per capita availability has gone up. What is more important is that in the food deficit Africa the growth rates of food prouction are higher than the world average growth rates.In Africa the increase in cereal production is 25.2% and in roots and tubers 26.4%. Similarly there is considerable increase of around 15% in production of vegetables, fruits, eggs, meat and milk. To sustain this increase, expansion of irrigation is important. Construction of dams, lakes, digging of canals, diversion of rivers should be given priority. Simultaneously micro irrigation like drip and sprinkler irrigation should also be undertaken.

The current per capita production of cereals at 350 kg per year is more than sufficient. The surplus will become more pronounced if feeding animals with cereals is reduced and fodder production is increased.

Enough food grains are produced. Giving buying power to the people will ensure food security.

Irrigated land in India and the world

Excerpt from “Simple Alternate Development Strategy”

Irrigation

In 1990, out of 1350 million ha of arable land in the world, irrigation was provided to 237 million ha i.e. 17.56% of the arable land was irrigated. China had provided irrigation to 48 million ha which formed 51.61% of the total arable land, while India had provided irrigation to only 43 million ha which accounts for only 26.06% of the total arable land. Former USSR, USA, Brazil, Australia and Canada had provided irrigation to 21 million ha (9.33%) , 19 million ha ( 10.10 % ), 2.7 million ha (4.5%) 1.9 million ha (3.87%) and 0.9 million ha( 1.96%) of land respectively. While India appears to have done well in providing irrigation compared to countries like former USSR, USA, Canada etc. these are the countries with large areas and comparatively low population and except Brazil, those which receive lesser rainfall than India. On the contrary , many countries like Pakistan, Japan, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, South Korea, North Korea and Vietnam had provided irrigation to a larger proportion of their arable land. The area under irrigation in these countries is: Pakistan 16.5 million ha of 20.3 million ha (81.28%), Japan 2.8 million ha out of 4.6 million ha (60.86%) , Indonesia 7.6 million ha out of 16.0 million ha (47.5%), Iran 5.8 million ha out of 14.1 million ha (41.13%), Iraq 2.6 million ha out of 5.3 million ha (49.05%), South Korea 1.4 million ha out of 2.0 million ha (70.0%), North Korea 1.4 million ha out of 1.7 million ha (83.52%) and Vietnam 1.8 million ha out of 5.7 million ha (31.5%). These figures show that land irrigated in India is far below the potential. This is reflected in the lower yield and production, as will be clear from the succeeding paragraphs.

Production, yield and per capita availability of fruits

Excerpts from “Simple Alternate Development Strategy”

“India is the second largest producer of fruits in the world behind Brazil In 1991,it produced 28 million MT or 8% of the total world prodution of 348 million MT. Per capita production of fruits in India was 33kg/year against ….65kgin the world. India produces mainly mangoes(10 million MT)and banana(6.4 million MT). It does not produce much of the other fruits which are major ones in the world like grapes, oranges, pine apples etc. For example, its production of grapes at 314000 MT in 1991 was only 0.5% of the total global producion of 57 million MT. However, in grapes, the yield is significant at 20.9 MT/hectare against…world aveage of 6.8 MT. This is because, the entire area under grapes cultivtion is under irrigation. more than anything else viz high yieldig varieties, fertilizers,pesticides etc.though these are important inputs. Major producers of grapes are Italy, France, former USSR and Spain,the four together accounting for 47% of the world production.

Another major fruit in the world is orange. The world production in 1991 was 55 million MT,closely behind that of grapes. India is not a significant producter.Its productio of 1.89 million MT accounts for only 3.4% of world production. The major producers are Brazil (34%) and China (9.7%)

Banana is another major fruit with a production of 47.7 million MT in 1991.The leading producers are India (13.4%), Brazil(11.8%),Philippines(7.4%), Indonesia(5.0%) and China(4.4%). In spite of being the largest producer of bananas, the per capita availability is only 7.3% kg per year while the world per capita availability is 8.8 kg and the per capita production of the rest of the. world(i.e,excluding India)is 9.14kg…..

The fourth important fruit in the world is apple whose production in 1991 amounted to 39.4 million MT.India’s production of 1.02 million MT comes to only 2.6% of world production. The major producers in the world are former USSR(15.2%),China(12.2%) and USA(11.4%)…..

Mango is the fifth important fruit in the world, production of which amounted to 16.12 milliom MT. Out of this, India’s production was 9.70 million MT i.e. 60% of the world production. Mango is perhaps the only item in which India has a dominat presence in the world. The per capita poduction comes to 11kg per year.

In pine-apple, India’s contribution was 700.000MT to the world production of 10.08 million MT. It comes to 6.9% ofthe world production.”

India’s production of fruits has gone up now to around 32 million MT, but its share in the world remains more or less same i.e.8%. India needs to double its production of fruits,if Indians are to consume on an average as much fruits as the rest of the people in the world.