AGRICULTURE

Agriculture and allied sectors estimated to grow by 4.1 per cent in 2016–17 with the kharif foodgrains production reaching 135.0 million tonnes (from

124.1 million tonnes in 2015–16). Area sown (upto 14th October, 2016) under all kharif crops taken together was 1075.7 lakh hectares (3.5 per cent higher compared to the corresponding period of 2015–16)—with arhar showing the highest increase of 40.24 per cent. The rabi crops’ sowing was in progress—the area coverage under rabi crops (by 13th January 2017) was 2016–17 at 616.21 lakh hectares (5.9 per cent higher than the corresponding week of last year). The area coverage under wheat was 7.1 per cent higher; under gram 10.6 per cent higher than that in the corresponding week of last year.

Monsoon: Country as a whole received 97 per cent rainfall during south west monsoon (long period average)—with wide regional variations—95 per cent in northwest, 106 per cent in central, 89 per cent in northeast and 92 per cent in south. Out of the total 36 meteorological subdivisions, 4 subdivisions received excess rainfall, 23 subdivisions received normal rainfall and the remaining 9 subdivisions received deficient rainfall.

Agri prices: The price policy of Government for major agricultural commodities seeks to ensure remunerative prices to the farmers to encourage higher investment and production, and to safeguard the interest of consumers by making available supplies at reasonable prices. On account of the volatility of prices of pulses, a Committee on Incentivising Pulses Production

Through Minimum Support Price (MSP) and Related Policies was set up (headed by Arvind Subramanian, Chief Economic Adviser). To increase productivity of pulses, a new extra early maturing, high yielding variety of Arhar (Pusa Arhar-16) has been developed to be made available for farmers in the next Kharif season. During 2016–17, MSPs were raised substantially mainly for pulses to incentivize farmers.

Foodgrain stocks & procurement: The food-grain management involves procurement of rice and wheat following the norms for buffer stocks. The stocks of food-grains (rice and wheat) was 43.5 million tonnes on 1st December, 2016 (compared to 50.5 million tonnes as on 1st December, 2015) against the buffer stock norm of 30.77 million tonnes as on 1st October 2015. Procurement of rice as on 6th January 2017 was 23.2 million tonnes during kharif marketing season 2016–17 whereas procurement of wheat was 22.9 million tonnes during rabi marketing season 2016–17. As part of the price policy to protect consumers, the Central Issue Prices of rice and wheat have remained unchanged since 1st July 2002.

Agriculture credit: Credit is an important input to improve agricultural output and productivity. To improve agricultural credit flow, the credit target for 2016–17 was fixed at Rs. 9 lakh crore against Rs. 8.5 lakh crore for 2015–

16. As against the target, the achievement for 2016–17 (upto September 2016), was 84 percent of the target, higher than the corresponding figure of 59 per cent upto September 2015.