Year: 2018 | Month: December | Volume 5 | Issue 2
Sustaining Rice Farming in Kashmir Valley: Challenges and Opportunities
Farhet A. Shaheen
Shabir A. Wani
G.A. Parray
N.R. Sofi
M. Anwar Bhat
Tariq Sultan
F.A. Mohiddin
Shahid Jibran
Naseem Akhter
Farheen Naqash and Faheem Jeelani
DOI:10.30954/2394-8159.02.2018.2
Abstract:
Rice productivity in the state is high with 3.1 t/ha compared with the national average productivity of about 2.0 t/ha, although with the passage of time the area under rice in Jammu & Kashmir state is continuously decreasing because of climatic and diversification forces. Food grain deficiency in the state has already touched to 40% and majorly in rice which is bound to grow in future. Despite of decreasing land area under paddy in the state, productivity trend is showing an upward trend which is due to the efforts of the Research & Development institutes for breeding of better seed varieties and other technological interventions. Economic viability and social acceptability apart from environmental acclimatization plays an important role for any crop to sustain. The aromatic local land races yielding lesser than the main varieties such as Jhelum and SR-1 were found to make higher net returns due to relatively higher prices for the grain/rice. A lot of scope exists for curtailing the costs on part of labour if mechanization can be introduced in paddy cultivation as it entails the major share (60%) of Cost. In order to sustain the viability of paddy framing and to compete with the imported rice, more emphasis needs to be given on better seeds through seed replacement; resource use efficiency for optimizing yields and reducing costs; bridging the yield gap through scientific and extension interventions.
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