Paddy Production In India
- One of the nations, where most of the world’s rice is consumed, is India. Cereal is consumed regularly by more than 3 billion people. It is one of the crops that uses the most water, though.
What techniques are employed in India to grow rice?
- Occasionally referred to as rice, oryza sativa is a kind of wild grass.
- Regarding the origin of rice, there are many different perspectives. Others think it began in Southern India and spread from the foothills of the Himalayas to nations like China, Korea, the Philippines, Japan, etc.
- The Eastern Himalayan foothills’ Indica and Japanica varieties of rice are two of the earliest varieties of domesticated rice (originated in Southern China).
- One of the main producers of rice is India. It is the biggest basmati exporter.
- India produces a number of distinctive rice varieties, such as Jasmine, Ambemohar (GI-tagged to Maharashtra), Seeraga Samba, etc. The most recent rice variety to be added to the list of Indian rice varieties with GI tags is the “Chakhao” or black rice from Manipur.
- The majority of the rice produced in India is grown in West Bengal. States like Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu produce a large amount of rice.
- When an Indian farmer gathered 22 tonnes of rice from an acre in 2011, it set a new record for the highest rice yield.
- In India, the Kharif season is when rice is mostly farmed, especially in the northern states. Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh are some of the states that also cultivate it as a Rabi crop.
- The first Kuruvai rice harvest in nine years has just begun by Tamil Nadu farmers. Rice is grown in the Cauvery River delta during this brief planting season.
What development and research has been accomplished in rice growing in India?
- Since 1911, India has been breeding rice. After the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) was founded in 1920, more extensive research on rice began.
- The establishment of the Central Rice Research Institute in 1946 advanced rice research even more.
- The All India Coordinated Rice Improvement Project (AICRIP) was started by the ICAR in 1965 with the goal of raising rice output, productivity, and profitability in India.
- The creation of Taichung (Native)-I was one of the most significant rice breeding achievements under the AICRIP programme. Padma and Jaya were two of the first AICRIP types to arrive.
- In India, there are more than 1,200 different rice cultivars.
What difficulties do rice farmers face?
- According to NABARD’s 2018 water productivity report, rice is one of India’s most water-intensive crops.
- An over reliance on paddy would put stress on the groundwater in areas with scarce water supply. One such state is Haryana, which relies on groundwater for 61% of its agricultural demands and 95% of its drinking water needs. Haryana was considered to be overexploited in terms of groundwater use.
- Rice is frequently grown using time-consuming techniques that require moving the seeds by hand from the fields to the germination stage. The enormous labour movement and COVID-19 conflict lockdown had a significant impact on the granary states’ rice farming.
- Both upland and lowland agricultural areas struggle with insufficient soil moisture retention. Rainwater drains easily from upland locations, while droughts are a severe worry in lowland areas.
- Because of flash floods, water logging, etc., rice production is difficult in areas that are prone to flooding (like Assam), have low-lying terrain, and have limited drainage. In some areas, hazardous breakdown byproducts and soil iron toxicity also build up.
- soil erosion results in a reduction in soil fertility. Other problems include land deterioration and saltiness.
- Use of fertilisers is ineffective.
- deficiencies in cultivation methods. When using the broadcasting approach, a small population of crop plants arises since not all seeds germination takes place. The unpredictable monsoon has caused a delay and inefficiency in the transplantation process.
- Around 78% of rice farmers are small and marginal farmers. Due to their economic illiteracy, they frequently lack the wherewithal to embrace more sophisticated crop production techniques and necessary agricultural inputs.
- Climate change and rice growing are related. It is said that because of the anaerobic conditions they engender, flooded fields emit greenhouse gases like methane. Up to 5% of all worldwide GHG emissions come from these sources.
- The growth of rice is also impacted by climate change. Weather extremes have an impact on it.
What should we do next, then?
- Analysts believe that the demand for rice won’t decrease anytime soon. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) estimates that in order to meet expected demand, rice production must rise by 25% over the next 20 years.
- Due to the profitability of the crop, it is anticipated that a significant portion of farmers in the granary states will continue to grow rice in the near future. On 27 lakh hectares of land in Punjab, rice will be grown. The production of Basmati rice, which is recognised for its outstanding quality, will take place over 7 lakh hectares of these.
- The DSR method is now used by a number of farmers (albeit on a smaller scale), and they have reported yields that are comparable to transplantation. Since they simply need to enhance their practise, adoption of the method should be rather simple.
- Since 2009–2010, the Punjabi government has been trying to encourage the widespread implementation of the DSR technology, with varying degrees of success. We will be able to accomplish this aim thanks to the significant labour shortage that now exists. The area used for DSR cultivation is more than eight times larger than it was the previous year, according to even early estimates.
- Governments are also reducing the price at which DSR devices are sold. The uneven adoption of technology throughout the early stages of the Green Revolution demonstrates how crucial this is. The necessity of the government’s role in ensuring the equal distribution of benefits from a new agricultural technology to all sectors of the farming community is one of the lessons learned from the 1950s and 1960s.
- Farmers themselves have also addressed a variety of issues. Some farmers, for instance, have modified Happy Seeder machines—typically used for sowing wheat—to plant paddy seeds using the DSR technique so as to avoid having to buy new equipment.
