Chhattisgarh received the award for being the top most state in the country in the field of foodgrain production, registering 28.68 per cent more crops than the last year. Chhattisgarh Agriculture Minister Brij Mohan Agrawal received the award at the hands of Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh at a function at New Delhi. Agriculture Ministers of various states were present at the function.
Agrawal said that the achievement was possible because of quick development of irrigation facilities in the state, focus on production of better and high quality paddy and better production of corn crop in the State. He further said that production of crops in the state after its formation has almost doubled and productivity has increased more than double so far.
He added that rice production in the state has increased 39 per cent from year 2003-04 to year 2013-14, which is far better than the two per cent increase during the period at national level.
The minister said that foodgrain production in Chhattisgarh in the year 2016-17 was 9.32 lakh tonne, which is almost 2 lakh tonne more than the average production in last five years. He added that the total increase in production as compared to last five years average production was 26.68 per cent. He further said that total crop production in the state also includes the high yield in the corn crop. In 2015, corn crop production was 1.6 lakh tonnes, which has increase by 16 per cent to 1.89 lakh tonne.
The State Agriculture Minister said that in the field of foodgrain production in the last 15 years Chhattisgarh has registered a growth of 48 per cent in rice, 148 per cent in wheat, 60 per cent in total crops, 43 per cent in total pulses production, 58 per cent in total foodgrain production and 158 per cent increase in oil seeds (tilhan).
Providing further details, he said that the state has been producing almost 10 lakh quintal of seeds at present which was 45,0000 quintal seeds in the year 2003.
He added that 50 lakh ‘Swasthya health cards’ have been issued to farmers under the prime minister’s ‘Swasthya health card’ scheme. He said that the state has been providing loan on zero per cent interest to its farmers and every year over Rs4,000 crore loans have been given to farmers.