The area under paddy, the main food crop of Kerala, has come down significantly over the years, which had led to the State depending more and more on outside supplies to meet its domestic requirement of rice.
In 2005-06, the total area under paddy stood at 2.76 lakh hectares as against around 7.53lakh hactares in 1961-62. This means the State witnessed a decrease of 63 percent in paddy area over a period of 44 years, according to the latest report of the Department of Economics and Statistics.
The total production of rice has also come down in tandem: it stood at 6.3 lakh tones in 2005-06 compared to 13.39 lakh tones in 1981-82. Thus, over a period of 24 years, the rice production has fallen by more than 50 percent. At 6.3 lakh tones as on the last count it can meet only around one-fifth of the State's total annual consumption of 30 –lakh tones.
The area under paddy in 2005-06 was 21% of the total food crops are in the state and Palakkad district ranked first in terms of the cultivated area, followed by the Alapuzha district. On the other hand, there has been a rise in the area under coconut in the state. It increased from 5.05lakh hactares in 1961-62 to 8.98lakh hactares in 2005-06. Kozhicode district came first with 14.5% of the total area under coconut, followed by Malappuram, Pathanamthitta and Wayanad.
(The Business Line,
No comments:
Post a Comment