The Government plans to bring around nine million hectares of land under mustard cultivation and raise the production to about 17 million tonnes by 2025-26, according to Shubha Thakur, Joint Secretary (Oilseeds), Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare.
Speaking at a webinar on 'Mission Mustard 2025', organized by Solvent Extractors' Association (SEA) of India on Friday, she said that the average normal area for five years from 2014-15 to 2018-19 was 5.9 million hectares, and the production was around 7.7 mt.
Stating that the Government is setting an ambitious target for 2025-26, she said going by the success in the past; the area is expected to bigger around nine million hectares and production increase around 17 mt.
Looking close coordination and cooperation of the industry to achieve this, she said along with the government support and farmers' hard work; this can be made possible.
For 2021-22, the Government targets an area of 7.58 million hectares with a production of 12.24 mt. The Government targeted 368 districts in 13 States last year for mustard cultivation, and it will continue this year also. Around ₹160 crores were spent on a mustard mission the previous year, she said.
Rabi season
In the Rabi season 2021, the area covered under mustard was around 7.3 million hectares and an increase of about 4 lakh hectares over the Rabi of 2020.It is planned to provide high-quality seeds to the farmers, and the Government has embarked upon proper seed planning to achieve the target for 2025-26.
The Government has made minute planning for the next five years, and the areas have been identified. They include rice fallow areas, intercropping areas, and non-traditional areas. Planning has also been done about the districts for taking up mustard cultivation and the availability of the seeds.
For the 2022 Rabi season, rice fallow areas have been identified in States such as Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Odisha, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh. This intervention will help bring additional two lakh hectares under mustard cultivation, she said.
On intercropping intervention, she said it would do it with the major crops in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Karnataka, and Maharashtra, and this intervention would bring additional 2 lakh hectares of area under mustard cultivation. The Government is targeting Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Kerala for non-traditional areas.
