India to increase food production

Coimbatore, Feb 15 (UNI) Tamil Nadu Agricultural production Commissioner and Secretary to the Government Surjit K Choudhary today warned that if the current trends of food production was not upgraded by 2025, India would have to import 92 million tons of cereals annually.

Delivering the special address during the eighth Agricultural science Congress at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) here, he said in the last ten years, India had 150 million more mouths to feed. But she could increase food production only by 15 million tonnes.

With its 2.4 per cent of the world's area, India has to support 17 per cent of the world population and in the current scenario, it is necessary to produce 300 million tonnes of food grains by 2020 with six per cent annual rate of increase to feed the increased population under the current growth rate.

Tamil Nadu Rural Industries Minister Pongalur N Palanisamy in his address said the state government has planned to allocate Rs 2500 crore for five years for Integrated Agricultural Improvement Programme to increase the production in the state.

He said the state also has allocated Rs 100 crore for establishing Agricultural Terminal Market at Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai.

UNI