• General Scenario and Current Trend : The Gross Cropped Area in Maharashtra is 225.56 lakh ha and the Net Cropped Area is 174.73 lakh ha. Cultivable waste, current fallow and other fallow land is 11% of the geographical area of the State. Gross Irrigated area is 44.19 lakh ha and 80% of the area is rainfed. Small and marginal farmers holdings are 90 lakh which is 70% of the total holdings.

    The state has a large area under alkaline soil and saline soil which is 4.23 lakh ha and 1.84 lakh ha respectively. More than 50% soil is deficient in zinc. Deficiency of iron and manganese is also apparent in many districts.

    SRR has been achieved in major Kharif crops but VRR has not yet been stressed.

    Productivity of rice, wheat, jowar, gram, arhar, soyabean, cotton, sugarcane has been reported to be at the level of 1897 kg/ha, 1893 kg/ha, 965 kg/ha, 824 kg/ha, 928 kg/ha, 1493 kg/ha, 373 kg/ha and 81 kg/ha respectively in 2007-08 which was a good monsoon year. More than 50% yield gap is existent in all crops. 14.32 lakh ha area is under fruit cultivation, 4.55 lakh ha area is under vegetable cultivation and 16740 ha area is under flower cultivation. Except for Kagzi lime, productivity of all horticulture crops are below the potential reported by SAUs.

    Fruit, vegetable and flower cultivation area is increasing 18% fruit, 5% vegetable, 8% loose flower, 13% cut flower, 2.8% plantation crop, 2.4% spices comes from the state. 21.4% of banana, 21.5% of citrus fruit, 23% of mosambi, 55.2% of orange, 76.9% of grape,



12.7% of guava, 5.2% of mango, 69.5% of pomegranate, 23.8% of sapota, 5% of brinjal, 6.5% of cabbage,5.7% of cauliflower, 32.9% of onion production of the country is produced in the state.

Agriculture and allied sector contributes about 12% to the GSDP but the State intervention in this sector is around 5%.

  • Strength: 9 agro-climatic zones, variety of soil and crops, forward looking seed-village programme and soil health card preparation, leader in sugar production, onion cultivation, grape, orange, mango, pomegranate, guava, good farm credit structure and cooperatives, seed production infrastructure. Adoption of Dry Land Farming Techniques, pioneering Horticulture Development through EGS, State Seed Corporation, corporate 44 horticulture companies, effective and research based farmers organizations are other areas of strength. State has established one floriculture park, one mega-food park and three food parks, two wine parks and 54 wineries.

  • Limitation: Very less irrigated area, 52% area is under DPAP, poor soil quality, very high yield gaps in most of the crops in relation to the average yield and achievable yield.

  • Public Investment :The state has made welcoming intervention through centrally sponsored schemes as well as through satisfactory allocation under Agriculture sector from the State Plan for increasing production and productivity. In 2005-06 out of Rs.14674 cr State Plan, Agriculture and allied sector received Rs.367.37 (2.5%). Similarly, in 2006-07 out of Rs.15681.38 cr State Plan thus sector has received Rs.732.27 (4.67%), in 2007-08 out of Rs.19422 cr. State Plan, this sector has received Rs.964.80 cr. (4.97%)

    In 2008-09 out of Rs.25000 cr State Plan, Agriculture and Allied activities has received Rs.564.18 cr (2.26%).

    During 2007-08, GOI provided Rs.128.20 cr. under RKVY, Rs.132.24 cr under NHM, Rs.120.34 cr under MMA, Rs.20.00 cr. under ISOPOM, Rs.14.20 cr under ATMA, Rs.14.34 cr under Cotton Mission and Rs.14.14 cr under NFSM.

    Similarly, in 2008-09, Rs.261.77 was provided under RKVY, Rs.130.21 cr under NHM, Rs.103.13 cr under MMA, R.14.25 cr under ATMA, Rs.29.00 cr under ISOPOM, Rs.9.58 cr under Cotton Mission and Rs.62.24 cr under NFSM was provided to the state.

    Thus, in last two years of the 11th Plan Period, State government spent Rs.1528.98 cr and Central Government provided approx Rs.1050.00 cr for agriculture and allied sector.











STATE HAS AGREED TO PREPARE TIME BOUND ACTION PLAN FOR THE STRATEGY AND RECOMMENDATION..