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| No room for keeping agriculture sector undeveloped | | |
Gradually area under rice and wheat cultivation in Jammu and Kashmir keeps on declining.This has started causing concern among the ministers and officers in the Department of Agriculture.One can imagine that out of the tot al area of over 2lakh sq.kms Jammu and Kashmir has just over one lakh acres under wheat.Surprisingly the Kashmir valley,where rice is the staple food of the people,has only 3.74 lakh acres under paddy cultivation.The Minister for Agriculture,Ghulam Hassan Mir,is of the view that only seven per cent area in the Kashmir valley is cultivable.No doubt the average per acre yield of rice in the valley is quite high,as much as 25.5 quintals per acre,the overall low production of paddy and that of wheat in the entire state has forced the Government to bank on heavy imports of main foodgrains.
Over the years there has been a major shift from agriculture to horticulture after the cultivators found fruit growing practices more rumenerative than the cultivation of paddy and wheat.These factors have fortified the horticulture in Jammu and Kashmir.Except for self-sufficiency in fruit the state of Jammu and kashmir has to bank on import of pulses,edible oils,wheat rice,and other items.There was a time when large quantities of timber used to be exported from Jammu and Kashmir to the neighbouring states.The export quantity has dwindled during the last 25 years following depletion in forest wealth and squeezing of forest areas.This was the result of large scale encroachment of forest lands.Jammu and Kashmir had been an ideal state for development of forest wealth but the total area under forests has shrunk from over 30,000 sq kms to less than 20,000 sq kms during the last 20 years.
With rapid fall in wheat and rice production besides the forest wealth the Government cannot but prepare a master plan for the development of agriculture,horticulture and forest wealth.The state is rich in minerals and the existing policy on extraction and sale of the mineral wealth,including gypsum,sapphire,magnisium,sulphur and other minerals needs to be reviewed and reframed.This is required in view of the fact that livelihood of 80 per cent of people depends on agriculture.
Ghulam Hassan Mir has decided to lay emphasis on double cropping so that the state is free from its age-old culture of monocropping.There are weather related problems which may not allow the state to have multi-cropping practices but Mir wants that atleast in various areas of the state cultivators could reap two crops easily.He wants major cultivable area to come under cultivation of wheat followed by rice as has been the practice in Punjab and Haryana.He also wants to revive old practice of sowing some crops,especially maize,pulses and mustard,in the orchards without causing any damage to the fruit cultivation practices.
The state needs two tools for ensuring greater production of foodgrains.First it has to increase the area under cultivation which it cannot find within the valley and within the habitable area of Jammu because vast stretches of agricultural land have been converted into residential plots which was required owing to population boon.And Mir is right when he says that the Government plans to lay emphasis on crop cultivation in Kandi belts.No doubt the scientists of the SKUAST have found careva lands as fertile as in non-kandi areas but what problem cultivators in kandi areas face is the lack of irrigation facilities.This shortcoming has to be tackled by adopting sprinkle irrigation and proper use of rainfed areas for crop cultivation.
Secondly,the scientists in the SKUAST and other agricultural universities be approached for evolving high yielding and quick maturing seeds which could be sown in Jammu and kashmir.At least for the Kashmir valley farmers need quick maturing seeds so that vagaries of weather do not damage the crops.This way the emphasis has to be on agriculture as horticulture production has reached the saturation point in the valley.
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