India's food production likely to touch 227.32 mt: Pawar

Hyderabad, May 26 (UNI) Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar today said food production was likely to touch an all-time record of 227.32 million tonnes as per the latest advance estimates for 2007-08.

Inaugurating the National Conference of Ministers of Agriculture and Horticulture at the National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM) here, he said Indian agriculture had made tremendous progress since Independence, as the country had an all-time record food production of 217.28 million tonnes during 2006-07.

This breakthrough was achieved through the combined efforts of Centre and state Governments, scientists, policy makers, farmers and other stakeholders, he added.

Stating that the growth in fruits, vegetables, cash crops, milk and fishery was also highly commendable, he said India is now the largest producer of milk, banana, mango, coconut, tea, ginger, turmeric and cashew.

India was the second largest producer of rice, wheat, fruits and vegetables and fourth largest producer of rubber and sixth largest producer of flax and coffee in the world, he pointed out, he said.

Claiming that the new agriculture policy and programmes were fine tuned for addressing the emerging challenges, he said the nation had great strength in vast network for agricultural research, education and development.

In India the latest estimates of coarse cereal production was 39.67 million tonnes, which was about 16.5 per cent of total foodgrain production in the country, he added.

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