DR P. S. DESHMUKH, Union Minister for Agriculture, emphasized the need of intensive cultivation of ‘jowar’,’ bajra’ and other millets in the country.
Addressing a conference of millet workers here yesterday he said: “We have not given to millets the attention their importance deserves. Of a total of nearly ₹230 lakhs given by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research as assistance to the States up to the end of 1954, both in respect of terminated schemes and current schemes of agricultural research, excluding animal husbandry and fodder research schemes, not more than ₹5 lakhs have been spent on millet research schemes.” He hoped that more attention would be given to research on these important food crops at least in the future.
Millets, he said, are grown mostly in scarcity areas of low and uncertain rainfall, many of them are chronically famine areas. Governments were no doubt awakened to the need of paying better attention to these areas and special funds had been allotted and spent on irrigation projects, mostly minor for these areas.
“Millets,” Dr Deshmukh continued, “ form the chief cereal food of about 40 per cent of our population, who live in these dry areas where nothing else can be grown it any rate so well. The importance of millets to the agricultural population and in the economy of our country cannot, therefore, be over, emphasized.”
ACREAGE AND PRODUCTION
Giving figures regarding the acreage and production under these crops. Dr Deshmukh said: “The area under millets is about 85 million acres or nearly ten million acres more than that under rice and their production amounts to only 15 million tons as against 23 to 27 million tons of rice, although the acreage is about 12 per cent less. Bombay has the largest area under millets of about 20 million acres, followed by Hyderabad with 12 million, Rajasthan with ten million, Andhra and Madhya Pradesh with more than six million acres each, Madras with five million, Mysore, Madhyabbarat and Saurashtra with four million each, and Punjab and Uttar Pradesh with nearly three million acres each.
“The average yield of jowar per acre is about 300 lbs. and that of bajra is slightly less. In the case of other crops, the average yields of these crops in the different States vary immensely. Madhya Pradesh tops the list for the highest average yield of 650 lbs of jowar per acre, while the highest average yield of 500 lbs of bajra per acre has been recorded in Andhra and Uttar Pradesh. There is thus considerable room for improvement in the yield of these two important millet crops. This can be achieved by growing improved varieties and by evolving new varieties for use in areas where such varieties do not already exist.”
CAMPAIGNS NEEDED
Stressing the need of launching campaigns for intensive cultivation, he said: “Ordinarily, I would have laid the greatest emphasis on this point but conscious of how the growers of millets have been most hard-hit as a result of unprecedented production and the consequent falling prices, I myself have a certain amount of hesitation whether we should take up such campaigns with regard to millets with greater intensity than we have done during the last two years.
“There are naturally two things we have not only to bear in mind but which we can never allow ourselves to forget. The first is that the availability of sufficient food is the most vital matter in the life of a nation and especially of such a large nation with its rapid growth of population. Secondly, climatically we are so precariously situated that even if some of the growers were somewhat adversely affected by low prices consequent on better production, we would be doing a disservice to the nation if we were to slacken our efforts at larger production for this very reason.”
The keeping capacity of millets, he said, was unfortunately so low that any excessive production could not be utilized for building reserves as can be the case with wheat. Even so, in view especially of the vagaries of the monsoon as well as the changeable climatic conditions people should persist in their effort to produce the largest amount of crops from the smallest possible area. “Even if falling prices hit us badly, it is patriotic to know that the food that we have grown has become available and within the purchasing power of a much larger section of our people than used to be the case for years past and I think it is legitimate to derive considerable satisfaction from this fact whether this is adequately realized by other people or not “ he said.
Mr K. R. Damle, Vice-President of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, in his preliminary remarks emphasized the need of co-ordination research in different fields of agriculture.
The conference was attended by over 40 delegates from Bombay, Madras, Andhra, West Bengal, Punjab and Delhi.