Growth and Decomposition of Millets in Odisha: 1960-61 to 2019-20

Background: Odisha started a programme to revive millets in 2017. Keeping this in the background, this paper examines growth of production, area and yield and decomposition of production of millets in Odisha in the last six decades by using triennium ending data, TE1962-63 to TE2019-20. Methods: Boyce’s kinked exponential method has been used to estimate growth for production, area and yield. Production was decomposed to area, yield and interaction effects. Millets as a crop group is compared with other foodgrain groups and then analysis was carried out for four specific millet crops - ragi, jowar, bajra and small millets. Result: In Odisha, the 1960s and 1970s indicate an increasing trend in production of and area under millets. There is a reversal of these trends since 1980s. The decline started first for small millets in the 1980s and subsequently since the 1990s for the three major millets - bajra, jowar and ragi. Decomposition of millets production indicates that the decline since 1980s is largely on account of area effect, but also because of yield effect in the 1990s and 2010s.

Crop planning based on rainfall variability for Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, India

Analysis of long-term rainfall data (1986-2018) of Bastar region revealed decreasing trend in total quantum of annual rainfall with varying frequency and distribution. The quantity of winter and summer rains decreased drastically during 2008-18 as compared to earlier two decades (1986-96 and 1997-2007). SW monsoon rain of 2008-18 was more than past two decades, whereas NE monsoon rain changed much in quantity except during 1997-2007. During 1986-96, the pre-monsoon shower was received in April, but later two decades the shower was received in May, which supports for summer ploughing and dry aerobic seeding. The cropping period almost synchronized between 22-43 standard meteorological week (SMW) reaching 93.11 mm per week as maximum rainfall. As the probability of 20 mm rainfall decreased from 75 to 50%, the crop yield got reduced by 30%. The mid-land rice with a probability of 13.47 to 16.07 mm rain per week supported growth phase during 17-21SMW. Whereas, upland rice maturing in 90-100 days could avoid dry spells, if the rice is managed by conservation furrows at the time of sowing. The summer ploughing is preferred with more than 40 mm rain in single day during March to April for mitigating dry spells. On the other hand, preparatory tillage and sowing were performed together in support of ripening niger and horsegram under probability of 75, 50 and 25% rain through crop planning. Maize and small millets reduced yield significantly when rainfall reached 75% deficit, whereas 25% deficit rain did not affect the yields.