India outwits China in the number of tractors in agricultural use

New Delhi, Aug 24 (UNI) Barring number of tractors for agricultural use, all other indicators like irrigated land, consumption of fertilisers and production of important crops are in favour of China, the Government today conceded in the Rajya Sabha.

Answering Mr Ram Jethmalani and Dr Murli Manohar Joshi in the Rajya Sabha on comparison of agricultural scenario in the two giant nations, Minister of State for Agriculture Kanti Lal Bhuria said India had outwitted China in terms of number of tractors in use.

India had 25.28 lakh tractors compared to 9.95 lakhs in China.

He said producer price was not lower for all the crops in China and the productivity for all the crops was low because of lower access to technology for small and marginal famrers, lack of high yielding varieties, low seed replacement and climatic aberrations.

The percentage of irrigated land of the agricultural land in India was 32.9 as against 35.3 per cent in China. The consumption of mineral fertilisers was 258.7 kg a hectare compared to 94.8 kg in India for 2003.

The productivity indicators of important crops for 2005 too favoured China. The per hectare sugarcane production was almost matching with India marginally low with 61952 kg a hectare compared to 66216 kg of China. The gap was very wide when it came to maize where India merely produced 1959 kg a hectare compared to 5059 kg of China.

The per hectare paddy production in India was 3000 kg as against 6329 kg. The figures for India for wheat was 2738 kg compared to 4282 kg for wheat and 957 kg for soyabean in India while in China it was 1779 kg.

About questions on contract farming, he said it was in practice in various parts of the country for sugarcane, cotton, tea and coffee where the farmers are assured of buy back agreement with the agency engaged in trading or processing.

Answering Mr Rudranarayan Pani, Minister of State for Agriculture Kanti Lal Bhuria said the extent of land covered under the contaact farming was not extactly known but farming was reported as beneficial to farmers as it can take care of price risk and help in mitigating production risk.

He said the government was not forcing the states to implement contract farming but to make this farming beneficial to the farmers and for sponsoring companies under a legal farmework suitable provisions were included in the model agricultural product market committee act formulated by Agriculture Ministry in 2003 and circulated to state governments for adopting the provisions. The model Act was suggestive in nature and the state government was free to decide and implement the provisions in their terrirory. At present no foreign companies are reported to undertake contract farming, he said.

UNI