Punjab aims to bring 20,000-hectare land under maize cultivation

Under the diversification scheme of the state,around 5.5-lakh hectare area is to be brought under maize. In 2012,only 1.30-hectare area was under maize cultivation. The state agriculture department is set to increase around 20,000-hectare area under maize,which needs over 4-lakh hectare more area under it.

Maize sowing will start towards the end of May and will continue till the end of June.

The Jalandhar agriculture department has adopted a unique method and is utilising five mobile vans to educate farmers about maize sowing in over 1,000 villages of the district. These vans will visit all the ten agricultural blocks of the district.

At present,around 8,000-hectare maize is being cultivated in Jalandhar,against around 1.65-lakh hectare paddy. “This year,we aim to bring around 10,500-hectare land under maize,” said Dr Swatantra Airi,Jalandhar Chief Agricultural Officer.

“We are the first in the state to have launched such vans to promote maize cultivation,as area can be diversified only after we take the task at ground level in a practical manner,” he added. He also said that farmers can earn from maize as much as they used to earn from paddy,and maize required less water and labour.

“A cassette has also been prepared,which will teach the farmers about the technical know how about maize sowing,” Airi said adding that they had high yielding seeds for maize and farmers could get 30-quintal per acre yield. Apart from this,there are around 140 products,which we can prepared from maize cultivation,said Dr Naresh Gulati,Deputy Director of Agriculture Technological Management Agency (ATMA).

A senior agriculture officer said that if such efforts were undertaken in all the 22 districts of the state,then around 50,000-hectare area could be brought under maize in the first year of diversification.