After Hybrid Rice, Its Veggies For Nagaon

By Sarat Sarma

What’s next?

Nagaon, Aug 23 : Buoyed by a successful stint with hybrid rice farming, the Nagaon agriculture department now plans to go for large-scale cultivation of hybrid vegetables in the central Assam district.

The initiative under the Horticulture Mission for North East and Himalayan states aims at involving around 10 groups of farmers in an area of 100 hectares. Each group will comprise 10 farmers.

The department plans to incur an expenditure of Rs 33 lakh to cover hybrid varieties of all vegetables under the centrally sponsored scheme.

A source in the agriculture department said all kinds of technical and financial support would be provided to the farmers, who would also be groomed in phases as and when the need for such training arises.

Nagaon district is known for its vegetables, which are supplied to markets in Upper Assam throughout the year.

According to the source, though a section of farmers uses hybrid seeds, lack of awareness about the new concept of cultivation coupled with inadequate infrastructure, stand in the way of satisfactory returns.

“Our aim is to acquaint farmers with the new concept of vegetable cultivation apart from the usage of sophisticated infrastructure in their fields,” the source added.

Nagaon has an area of 1,45,000 hectares for agriculture, of which 25,000 hectares are used to cultivate vegetables.

“Normally, our farmers produce 10 to 12 tonnes of vegetables per hectare. If hybrid varieties are used, the output from each hectare would go up to 32 tonnes. But for that, the farmer has to be sincere in adhering to the new concept of cultivation,” said senior agriculture development officer Lalita Borua.

The Nagaon agriculture department embarked on large-scale cultivation of hybrid rice under the National Food Security Mission — a centrally sponsored programme — in 2008. Three hybrid rice varieties — Arise 6444, Pac 832 and Arise Ghani — have already been popularised among the farmers under the mission.

“The results have been very satisfactory. This year, production of the Arise 6444 variety rose to 153 quintals per hectare,” said mission consultant Arunima Devchaudhury here.

Along with hybrid vegetables, the agriculture department aims to allot 100 hectares each for lemon, turmeric and banana under the horticulture scheme.

The department received Rs 1.5 crore to implement the scheme in the district during the financial year 2010-2011.

“Preliminary work like selection of farmers and training will be carried out soon. This will be followed by work like land preparation, purchase of seeds, fertilisers and nutrients. But such work depends on receiving the first phase of the fund, which will be released within September,” a department source said.

“Normally, we find that only a section of farmers, having strong political as well as administrative background, is benefited by these schemes. These programmes might have a far-reaching impact if the common farmers are involved,” said Najrul Islam, a Bengena-ati farmer.