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| Farm growth likely to be 3% this year: PMEAC |
| Press Trust of India / New Delhi Feb 22, 2012, 19:51 IST |
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 The agriculture sector is likely to grow by 3% in 2011-12 against 7% in the last fiscal, according to Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) report.
The projection made by PMEAC is higher than the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) advance estimate of 2.5% growth in agriculture during this fiscal.
"Farm sector output growth in 2011-12 has been strong, coming on top of the strong growth in the previous year," PMEAC, headed by C Rangarajan, said in a report.
The Council noted that the growth in the farm sector, which contributes about 15% to the GDP, stood at 3.7% in the first half of the current fiscal.
"The Council expects that in combination with the strong trend growth in horticulture and in the animal husbandry sectors, the overall farm sector GDP growth for 2011-12 will average 3%," the panel said.
Recently, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said that the agriculture sector is likely to achieve about 3.5% annual growth in the 11th Five-Year Plan as against 2.5% in the previous plan period.
He had also stressed on scaling it up to 4% or more in the next Plan (2012-17).
Stating that the country's foodgrains production is very favourable, the PMEAC said the second advance estimate shows a record foodgrain output of 250.4 million tonne this year, more than the previous highest output of 244.8 million tonne.
The foodgrains production of 128.4 million tonne from summer-sown crops (kharif) is also the largest ever kharif harvest, while output from winter (rabi) crops now estimated at 122 million tonne is slightly lower than 123.6 million tonne last year.
"However, it is likely that the final estimate [of rabi production] may be higher than last year’s," the PMEAC said.
The Council said that rice production at 102.8 million tonnes and wheat at 88.3 million tonne are also new records.
However, total output of pulses at 17.3 million tonne is lower than last year's 18.2 million tonne. In a similar fashion, oilseed production is estimated to be lower at 30.5 million tonne than last year.
In the area of horticulture, the initial estimates suggest that there has been growth of over 5.5% in horticultural products as a whole – namely vegetables, fruit, spice, nuts, aromatic plants and plantation crops – this year.
Milk and other animal husbandry products have shown good output, it added.
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