The strategy of announcing a bonus over the Centre’s minimum support price (MSP) and strengthening of the procurement system has helped Madhya Pradesh expand wheat area over the past few years.
The wheat area in the State has grown by 35 per cent in the past six years and is set to cross 50 lakh hectares in current rabi season.
“Wheat area has been increasing steadily. We have already crossed the targeted area of 49.55 lakh ha last week,” said M.M. Upadhyay, Agriculture Production Commissioner, Madhya Pradesh.
So far, farmers have planted wheat on 49.64 lakh hectares (lh), surpassing last year’s 49.01 lh.
Sowing is almost complete but the numbers are still coming in.
Besides the bonus, the State Government’s move to bring in additional land under cultivation by making fallow land productive and the expansion of irrigation through various schemes has also contributed to the wheat area, Upadhyay said.
Madhya Pradesh started offering bonus of Rs 100 a quintal over the Centre’s MSP to wheat growers since 2007-08 to encourage more production.
There are expectations that the MP Government will announce a bonus this year, too, considering that it is an election year.
For the rabi marketing season 2013-14, the Centre has announced a MSP of Rs 1,350 a quintal, about Rs 65 more than last year.
Acreage jumps
The area under wheat has grown from 37 lh in 2007-08 to 49 lh in 2011-12, while production shot up from six million tonnes to 10.5 million tonnes during the period.
MP has emerged as a major procurer of wheat recent years, almost matching the traditional States of Punjab and Haryana.
“Procurement has picked up substantially over the past five years and there has been a substantial increase in volumes and scale of operations in the past two years. The price support announced by the State through a bonus has made a difference to the growers,” said Mekhala Krishnamurthy, a social anthropologist, who has studied the procurement system in Harda district of MP.
Last year, the Government procured 85 per cent of the wheat produced in the State against 0.8 per cent in 2006-07.
Wheat procurement stood at a record high of 8.5 million tonnes in 2011-12 against 4.90 million tonnes in the previous year.