Amid apprehension of loss to the standing Rabi crop due to unseasonal rains, the Uttar Pradesh government has achieved paddy procurement of close to 51 lakh metric tons from farmers in the current Kharif marketing season.
With this, the state has surpassed its procurement target of 50 lakh MT by 13 per cent. Last year, UP had clocked paddy purchase of a little over 48 lakh MT. The state paddy procurement season had commenced on October 1 and was to officially conclude by the end of February, 2020.
According to official statistics, the state government agencies and Food Corporation of India (FCI) procured foodgrain from more than 7,00,000 farmers, including sharecroppers and contract farmers, for the first time. Wheat is procured from the farmers at the minimum support price fixed under price intervention scheme.
The procurement had been robust due to the high priority accorded by the state for ensuring a hassle-free process and the emphasis it laid on making the fields vacant for enabling early sowing of Rabi crop, including wheat.
The Yogi Adityanath government has been working on doubling farm income by 2024, with high procurement, remunerative prices, prompt payments, and early vacancy of fields among the key elements of the plan. It is also promoting food processing and allied industries to further enrich the farm value chain.
At total of 3,977 procurement centres, including 103 run by the FCI, had been set up across the 75 districts in the state to facilitate direct purchase from farmers.
Meanwhile, more than Rs 9,000 crore had been paid directly into the registered bank accounts maintained by paddy farmers against the procurement.
According to Agriculture Minister Surya Pratap Shahi, while under the previous regimes, the state paddy farmers had to wait for months to get their outstanding payments, they were getting their dues promptly under the present dispensation.
In September 2019, the UP cabinet had announced the paddy procurement policy for 2019-20, increasing the minimum support price (MSP) to Rs 1,835 per quintal for Grade-A paddy, apart from provisioning Rs 20 per quintal additional for farmers as transport and other support. This hiked the effective state paddy procurement price to Rs 1,855 per quintal.
The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has pegged the aggregate credit potential in the UP agricultural and allied sectors at Rs 2.94 lakh crore for the financial year 2019-20. It is a growth of over 9.7 per cent compared to the figure of Rs 2.68 lakh crore estimated for the current 2019-20 fiscal year by the Nabard. Last year, the state credit potential had grown by 13 per cent.
Meanwhile, Agriculture Director Shoraj Singh said some districts might have suffered 20-25 per cent loss due to rain and hailstorm but a better picture would emerge in the next 10-15 days. He said district authorities were assessing the losses.
Sudhir Panwar, president of the Kisan Jagriti Manch, said wheat, mustard, potato, tobacco and barley crops were damaged across UP. “Preliminary reports suggest 20-25 per cent loss in almost all the regions but in some areas of Mathura, Aligarh, Etawah, Saharanpur and some parts of Bundelkhand, entire crop has been damaged and loss varies between 70-80 per cent,” he said.
Officials said the overall damage had been limited as bright sunshine followed three to four days of rainfall.
The weather office expects clear skies for a few days but another weather system is heading for the hilly states of northern India early next week.
