Sowing for Rabi season crops have been completed in 60 per cent of the cultivation area in Chhattisgarh so far.
The State Agriculture Department has set a target of carrying out sowing activity in 17 lakh hectares of land with farmers taking crops such as food grains, oilseeds, pulses and vegetable cultivation.
Currently sowing for Rabi crops had been completed in 10 lakh hectares of land.
Moreover, during the current season, vegetables would be grown in 1.70 lakh hectares and the farmers have already carried out sowing in one lakh hectares of land.
The farmers have also carried out sowing for sugarcane crops in an estimated 10,000 hectares of land.
Notably, the Agriculture Department has started encouraging the farmers to sow more of pulses crop in Rabi season 2015-16.
As per the given target, 3.60 lakh hectares have been marked for sowing gram, 30,000 hectares for lentils, 30,000 hectares for moong, 15,000 hectares for urad, 40,000 hectares for kulthi and 3.50 lakh hectares have been marked for sowing Tivra crop.
The Agriculture Minister informed that two lakh hectares of area have been finalized for oilseeds crops and necessary preparations are underway.
This includes 1.50 lakh hectares for mustard, 70,000 hectares for Alsi, 10,000 hectares for Kusum, 15,000 hectares for sunflower, 5,000 hectares for sesame and and 25 hectares of land for sowing peanuts.
He informed that this year, the Department has planned to utilize 1.65 lakh hectares of land for cultivation of vegetables in summer season. This includes 35,000 hectares for sugarcane cultivation.
Notably, there had been an increase of 20 per cent in Maize crop acreage in Chhattisgarh during the past 10 years.
Maize is the second-most sought after crop after paddy preferred by farmers in Chhattisgarh. The crop is used in cornflakes, oil extraction, starch, making popcorn, organic fuel and for many other purposes, officials stated.
Maize is mainly produced in Bastar district's 'Patar' region (Plateau area) and Surguja's hilly terrain during the Kharif season. It is grown in these areas in the courtyard for the past several generations. The tribal farmers grow Maize and shift to taking up oilseeds crops.
Moreover, the State Agriculture Department has distributed as many as 8.34 lakh packets of organic fertilizers to the farmers of the State.
The Department is now preparing to distribute 11.50 lakh packets to the farmers, officials stated.
Notably, Chief Minister Raman Singh unveiled the organic rice brand ‘Aadim’ in this insurgency infested district at Javanga Village in October this year.
Significantly, a group of farmers of the district are working on the production of the organically cultivated rice.
Singh while addressing a huge number of people at the village had stated that the efforts made on promoting education and organic farming in Dantewada district is now gaining popularity across the globe. As many as 450 farmers engaged in organic farming were felicitated by the Chief Minister on the occasion.
Interestingly, Dantewada is the only district of the country wherein organic farming is done within an area of a hectare.
Singh assured to make all possible efforts to promote the organic rice produced by the farmers.
He felt that the organic rice of Dantewada can prove to be a competition for many districts of Punjab and Uttarakhand States.
As per the official data available, the State produced 56.98 lakh metric tonnes of vegetables during 2014-15 which was five per cent more than previous year.
Similarly, 21.55 lakh metric tonnes of fruits were cultivated in Chhattisgarh during 2014-15 which was 10 per cent more than the previous year.
In this context, the cold chain capacity created by the Union Ministry of Food Processing Industries in Chhattisgarh stood at 8500 metric tonnes (MT) till April 2015, officials stated.
In a power point presentation on Prospects of Cold Chain Infrastructure in Eastern Region on April 6, 2015, the Ministry has spelled out its plans of taking up a total of 500 Integrated Cold Chain projects as per the modified pattern of the Central assistance during the next five years across the country to create capacity of 2.5 million tonnes .
The core objective of the projects is to make the scheme of cold chain value addition and preservation infrastructure open ended, it stated.