The Centre will work out a strategy for crop production for the coming kharif cropping season keeping in mind the recent crop damage due to unseasonal rain and moisture stress and deficit monsoon last year.

The strategy will be thrashed out at a national conference on kharif 2016 next week.

The kharif cropping season is from July to October during the South-West monsoon.

“The South-West monsoon of the previous kharif season was very weak leading to a deficit of 14 per cent rainfall in the country. The rabi 2015-16 season also had less post-monsoon and winter rains and the availability of moisture in the soil is low. A strategy needs to be evolved for the coming kharif season in view of the above,” according to an official release of the Department of Agriculture.

The Kharif Campaign 2016, assumes great importance in view of the recent crop damages on account of moisture stress due to deficit, and uneven and untimely rains, hailstorm and other natural calamities, the release added. Farmers in States including Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra suffered damages to their crops.

Senior officials from the Departments of Agriculture, Horticulture, Animal Husbandry and Dairy and Credit, Cooperation & Marketing from all the States and Union Territories would participate in the conference to discuss and finalise the strategy for kharif 2016.

The recommendations of each of the four domains will be finalised on the second day of the conference starting on Monday and presented to the Agriculture Minister.

Senior officers of various Central Ministries and Departments such as fertiliser, water resources, land resources and all the three departments of agriculture will also participate.

“The strategy formulated in the Kharif Campaign, 2016, in the backdrop of the announcement by the government of doubling the income of the farmers in the next six years, is crucial,” the release said.

Related Topics