GUJARAT
1. General Scenario & Current Trend: Gujarat has 101 lakh hectare of Net Sown Area and 128 lakh
hectare of total cropped area with 8 agro climatic zones. In the state, soil type varies from deep black to
sandy and saline soils including medium black, poorly drained saline soils. State is having highest area
under saline soil and alkaline soil, which is 16.80 lakh ha and 5.41 lakh ha, respectively.
The annual rainfall ranges from 625mm to more than 1500 mm with an average annual rainfall of 972 mm.
24.94% area falls under arid and 35.56% falls under semi-arid area region. Only 34.4% area is irrigated. A
little less than half of Gujarat districts are drought prone.
Major Kharif crops in the state are cotton, groundnut, sesamum, castor, paddy, bajra, maize, tur, green
gram, sugarcane etc. and wheat, rice, maize, mustard, gram, groundnut, bajra etc are major Rabi crops.
In 2008-09, production of rice was 11.41 lakh ton, wheat 28.97 lakh ton, Bajra 8.84 lakh ton, maize 6.03 lakh
ton, cereals 55.25 lakh ton, tur 2.44 lakh ton, gram 2.05 lakh ton, pulses 4.49 lakh ton, oilseeds 38.9 lakh
ton, groundnut 26.77 lakh ton, sugarcane 15.04 lakh ton, and cotton 79.62 lakh ton in the state. Productivity
of rice during the period was 1656 kg/ha, which is much below the national average of 2100 kg/ha, in wheat
2400 kg/ha, which is closer to the national average of 2700 kg/ha. Productivity of bajra is 1292 kg/ha, maize
1439 kg/ha, cereals 1842 kg/ha, pulses 905 kg/ha, oilseeds 1336 kg/ha, cotton 560 kg/ha and sugarcane
8000 kg/ha which is less than the national average and the potential.
3.0 lakh ha is under fruit cultivation, 4.11 lakh ha is under vegetable cultivation and 9740 ha area is under
flower cultivation. 9% of fruit production, 6% of vegetable production, 6% of flower production and 12% of cut
flower production of the country comes from the state.
Agriculture and allied sector contributes about 16% to the GSDP.
2. Strength: The state has 8 agro-climatic zones, with varied soil condition. More than 40 major crops are
grown in the state. There is pre-dominant cultivation of non-food, high value crops i.e. cotton, castor, tobacco,
cumin, fennel, mango, groundnut, banana etc. It has entrepreneurial farmers and comparatively better developed
infrastructure.
3. Limitation: Huge area having alkaline soil and saline soil. The state has 19.8 lakh ha cultivable waste
land. Almost 70% of the area is rain fed and drought prone. The average size of land holding has reduced
from 4.11 ha in 1970-71 to 2.62 ha in 1995-96 and to 2.33 ha in 2000-01.
4. Public Investment: The state has made welcome intervention through Centrally Sponsored Schemes as
well as through satisfactory allocation under agricultural sector from the State Plan in the recent years for
increasing production and productivity. In 2005-06 out of Rs.11,000 cr State Plan, agriculture sector investment
was Rs.589.38 cr (5.36%), in 2006-07 Rs.715.05 cr. out of Rs.14384.45 cr (4.97%), in 2007-08 Rs.925.91 cr
out of Rs.15381.88 cr (6.02%) and in 2008-09 the allocation was Rs.1638.86 cr. (7.80%) out of Rs.21,000 cr.
State Plan towards agriculture sector.
During 2007-08 the state received Rs.13.72 cr under CMM, Rs.10.00 cr under ISOPOM, Rs.57.71 cr under
MMA, Rs.7.37 cr under NFSM, Rs.47.61 cr under RKVY, Rs.19.54 cr under NHM and Rs.311 cr under ATMA
from GOI.
During 2008-09, State was provided with Rs.12.83 under CMM, Rs.15.90 cr under ISOPOM, Rs.35.31 cr
under NHM, Rs.50.45 cr under MMA, Rs.8.33 cr. under NFSM, Rs.202.55 cr. under RKVY and Rs.3.43 under
ATMA by the GOI.
Thus, in first two years of the 11th Plan Period, GOI provided more than Rs.500.00 cr to the State Government
for intervention in Agriculture sector and State Government utilized approximately Rs.2564.77cr for this
sector out of its State Plan.
State Priority under RKVY 2007-09
Top 5 priority sectors under RKVY
Bottom 5 priority sectors under RKVY
Future Strategy and Intervention as identified by the state:
• Utilizing cultivable waste state land of 19.8 Lakh ha.
• Identifying yield gap in various crops and improving them by effective seed chain
• Better SRR in major crops in every cropping season
• Micro-irrigation
• Soil health management
• Micro-nutrient management
• 100% seed treatment for agriculture as well as horticulture crops
• Increasing production @ 6%, increasing area @ 3% and productivity @ 7%.
Recommendations:
• Soil health improvement by soil mapping.
• Appropriate variety of rice seed utilization
• Demonstration and distribution of seed minikits for all major crops, in the absence of adequate
quantity of ground-nut seed
• SRR,SMR and VRR to increase upto desirable level.
• Purchase of breeder seed to be improved
• Dedicated extension programme to address mealy bug in cotton
• Cumin cultivation to be discouraged while banana cultivation be restricted
• Requirement of potential based cropping for better returns to the farmer rather than promoting
traditional crops.
