State Paddy Mission under Agriculture Department attained the best growth rate in paddy production in a decade.  The state had a production increase of 56000 tonnes in last financial year.  The State Paddy Mission was brought into being last year in the context of farmers giving up paddy farming due to untimely floods and the Central Government reducing its quota of rice to the State.  Paddy was cultivated in 2.75 lakh hectares during last year.  Production of paddy was 6.78 lakh tonnes.  In the previous year production was only 6.22 lakh tonnes.

The action programme conceived under Paddy Mission was to plant paddy in more fallow lands and to organise paddy farming under the supervision of a district level paddy farming association.  An expert committee also functioned to the support of formers.  The present achievement is a result of this concerted effort.

As per the data collected by Paddy Mission workers Alappuzha district comes first in farming 1952 hectares of fallow land with paddy.  Palakkad district comes second by farming the crop in 1597 hectares of fallow land.  Kottayam comes third by covering 1217 hectares with paddy.

Better yield this time came as a result of increased attention of all concerned.  The yield in Alappuzha district was from 7.5 tonnes to 8 tonnes per hectare.  The figure for Cole lands of Thrissur was from 7 to 8 tonnes.  In previous years the yield was somewhere between 5 to 6.5 tonnes per hectare.

Paddy Mission volunteers are poised to extend paddy farming to 2000 hectares of paddy land additionally this time.  This year also a dedicated team consisting of Krishi Bhavans Paddy farmers’ corps and experts will devote their attention for a bigger growth rate in paddy production in the State.