(a) whether it is true that yield, across many crops, in East Asian countries, especially of China, is far higher than that of India despite the fact that their average land holdings are lower than that of our country;
(b) the steps taken by the Government to increase the yield of crops; and
(c) whether any efforts have been made in this regard and if so, the details of the outcome achieved during the last five years?
MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE
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(a): The yield of a crop depends on various factors such as weather extremities, rainfall, soil type, agro-climatic condition, irrigation facilities, types of crops cultivated, use of fertilizers and pesticides, length of growing seasons, technology used etc. The yield level of China and some other East Asian countries in certain crop categories are higher than that in India, while in some other crop categories, the yield level of India is higher than China and some other East Asian Countries.In India multiple crops are grown byfarmers in a year.
(b) & (c): National Food Security Mission (NFSM), a centrally sponsored scheme, launched in 2007-08, is being implemented with the objective of increasing foodgrains production through area expansion and productivity enhancement in the identified districts of the country. Under NFSM, assistance is given through state governments to farmers for interventions like cluster demonstrations on improved package of practices, demonstrations on cropping system, distribution of seeds of High Yielding Varieties (HYVs)/hybrids, improved farm machineries/resource conservation machineries/tools, efficient water application tools, plant protection measures, nutrient management/soil ameliorants, processing & post-harvest equipments, cropping system based trainings etc. The mission also provides support to Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) & State Agricultural Universities (SAUs)/KrishiVigyanKendras (KVKs) for technology back stopping and transfer of technology to the farmers under supervision of subject matter specialists/scientists.State-wise details of funds allocated, released and expenditure under NFSM during 2017-18 to 2021-22 is given at Annexure. Further, ICAR is continuously working on development/adoption of new technologies, upgradation of existing technologies and provide quality seeds of newly developed varieties of crops to farmers. During 2017 to 2021, a total of 1521 high yielding field crop varieties/hybrids have been released for various agro-climatic region of the country comprising of 691 of Cereals; 222 of Oilseeds; 247 of Pulses; 91 of Forage crops; 202 of Fiber crops; 52 of Sugar crops and 16 of other crops. Resultantly, the yield of foodgrains in the country has increased from 2042 kg./hectare during 2015-16 to 2394 kg./hectare in 2020-21.