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Drought limited scope of farmers’ package: Study
PUNE: The Prime Minister’s relief package for farmers in the suicide-prone districts of Maharashtra may have helped in the first two years of its implementation, but farmers’ capacity to cope with drought is still weak as is evident from the limited impact the package had in 2008-09.
Pune-based Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics studied the impact of the relief package on farmers since its inception in 2006. “The first two years saw considerable increase in area under irrigation, yield and other agricultural activities. However, these benefits could not sustain in the third year, i.e. 2008-09 when the suicide-prone districts suffered a major drought. Below normal rainfall was recorded, especially from June to August,” said Sangeeta Shroff, who jointly carried out the study with S S Kalamkar.
“This shortfall in rains had an adverse impact on the yield which showed drastic decline in production. All crops showed steep fall in yields. It is obvious that farmers could not overcome the situation through protective irrigation. Despite the relief package’s emphasis on increasing irrigation potential, the impact of drought minimised their efforts,” said Shroff.
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