Agriculture Mainstay in Bangaru Telangana

Agriculture is the mainstay in Telangana, as more than half of the State’s population depends on it for their livelihood. Agriculture and allied sector’s contribution to Gross Value Added (GVA) at constant (2011-12) prices for the year 2015-16 (AE) were about 12.9 percent, which declined from 16.1 percent in 2011-12. There has been high instability in the growth of income in the sector with an average annual growth of 0.3 percent during 2011-12 to 2015-16. Agriculture and allied sector during 2015-16, likely to record to a negative growth of –4.5 percent.

Deceleration and fluctuations in the growth of agriculture sector are mainly on account of vagaries of seasonal conditions. Though the minor irrigation was the main source of irrigation in Telangana, due importance was not given earlier. Added to this, 2015-16 has been a difficult year for the agriculture, as this was the second consecutive year of deficient rainfall, resulting in severe drought in the State. There was a decline in area under food grains from 26.14 lakh hectares in 2014-15 to 20.46 lakh hectares in 2015-16. In order to have a sustainable and stable growth of the agriculture sector, the Government has initiated "Mission Kakatiya" to revive all the Minor Irrigation sources in a phased manner to bring more area under cultivation with an objective to enhance the agriculture production in the State.

I. Agricultural Production, Area and Yields

The area under food and non-food crops: Net Cropped Area (NCA) in Telangana in the year 2014-15 was 43.8 lakh hectares while Gross Cropped Area (GCA) was about 53.2 lakh hectares. Out of the total GCA, 30.7 lakh hectares (58 percent) was under food crops and 22.5 lakh hectares (42 percent) was under non-food crops. The important food grains cultivated in the State are rice, maize, jowar, bajra, pulses, etc. Cotton is an important non-food crop accounting for 32 percent of total GCA in the State.

Foodgrain crops (i.e., rice, wheat, coarse cereals and pulses) are cultivated in 26.1 lakh hectares in 2014-15 and production is about 72.2 lakh tonnes of food grains. Rice is cultivated in about 14.2 lakh hectares in 2014-15 and the production is about 45.5 lakh tonnes of rice. The area under pulses was 4.1 lakh hectares in 2014-15 with the production of 2.6 lakh tonnes. Other important crops in the State in 2014-15 include coarse cereals, occupying 15 percent of total GCA, followed by pulses 8 percent and oil seeds 9 percent.

Area and Production in 2015-16:The production of food grains including cereals, millets and pulses has been estimated to be about 49.35 lakh tonnes in the current (2015-16) agriculture year as against 72.2 lakh tonnes last year. A sharp decrease in the production of paddy, the staple food in the State, has pulled down the total produce of food crops. Paddy output is estimated to be less than 30 lakh tonnes this year as against over 45.5 lakh tonnes last year.
Similarly, the production of pulses is estimated to be 2.5 lakh tonnes this year against 2.6 lakh tonnes last year. As a result of it the prices of pulses have unabated in last few months, the retail prices of red gram, dal has touched Rs. 210/- per Kg. in October 2015. The oilseeds production is likely to be 4.73 lakh tonnes as against 7.22 lakh tonnes last year. The details of Area and Production of food and non- food crops in 2014-15 and2015 -16 are given in Table below.

Table: Area, production, and Yield in 2015-16

Crops	Area (Lakh Hectares)			Production (lakh tones)			Yield (kg/hectare)
	2014-15	2015-16*	% of Dev.	2014-15	2015-16*	% of Dev.	2014-15	2015-16*	% of Dev.
Rice	14.15	9.51	-33	45.45	29.79	-34	3211	3132	-2
Maize	6.92	5.56	-20	23.08	16.19	-30	3338	2912	-13
Cereals &millets	22.05	15.91	-28	69.55	46.85	-33	3155	2945	-7
Pulses	4.08	4.55	12	2.63	2.5	-5	644	549	-15
Food grains	26.13	20.46	-22	72.18	49.35	-32	2763	2412	-13
Groundnut	1.55	1.18	-24	2.95	1.82	-38	1907	1542	-19
Soyabean	2.43	2.44	0	2.62	2.55	-3	1081	1045	-3
Oil seeds	5	4.36	-13	7.22	4.73	-34	1442	1085	-25
Sugarcane	0.38	0.58	53	33.43	27.93	-16	87654	79795	-9
Cotton**	16.93	17.78	5	35.83	36.08	1	360	345	-4

Note: *2nd Advance Estimation

The prospects in Rabi season appear to be even worse, as the area under food crops is sown 5.32 lakh hectares, as against the normal area of 10.08 lakh hectares. Showing the deficiency of 47% over the normal area. Paddy is the worst-hit crop as the area cultivated is only 36 per cent of the normal area due to prevailing adverse seasonal conditions.

District-wise analysis: Among10 districts of Telangana, Mahabubnagar, with 9.78 lakh hectares of land stand largest in terms of Gross Cropped Area in 2014-15, followed by Nalgonda and Karimnagar with 7.3 lakh and 7.0 lakh hectares, respectively.

Cereals, Millets and pulses occupy more than 50 percent of total GCA in Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Medak, Rangareddy and Mahabubnagar districts. Nalgonda (with 44 percent GCA) and Karimnagar districts (with 40 percent GCA) stand at the top in terms of area and production of rice in the state. With 2.10 lakh hectares area under coarse cereals, Mahabubnagar stands first in terms of area under coarse cereals and Karimnagar district stand first in terms of production of coarse cereals with 5.46 lakh tonnes. Cotton is a major non-food crop in Warangal, Karimnagar, Nalgonda, Adilabad and Mahabubnagar districts.

Changes in cropping pattern in Telangana: Food crops consisting of cereals, coarse cereals, pulses, and other food crops occupy lion share in total cropped area in the State. Research studies on State’s cropping pattern reveal that more than one-third area was under food crops during the 1980s. Cropping pattern from the 1980s onward shifted towards non-food crops in the State.

Of the total cropped area of 48 lakh hectares in 2001-02, around 71 percent was under food crops and 29 percent was under non-food crops. However, the share of food crops came down to 58 percent and the share of a non-food crop to 42 percent during the year 2014-15. Even in absolute terms area under food crops came down from 33.98 lakh hectares in 2001-02 to 26.13 lakh hectares in 2014-15 (Figure 3.2). This indicates that area under food crops is decreasing in both absolute and relative terms and the cropping pattern is shifting towards non-food crops.