Targeting and Diffusion of Groundnut improved cultivars in Tamil Nadu state of India

Abstract

India is a major grower and producer of oilseeds as well as a major importer of vegetable oils, ranks fourth among the countries in oilseed economy, next to USA, China and Brazil spending USD 10 billion in 2012-13. Nearly 14 million farmers are involved in oilseed production, mostly in arid and semi-arid regions of the country, whose capacity to adopt modern technology are constrained by poor resource base. This is coupled with aberration in monsoon and market economy presents a formidable challenge to make oilseed production sustainable in the long run. In order to curtail the growing vegetable oil import bills and increase the production and productivity of oilseeds, the Technology Mission on Oilseeds (TMO) was initiated in 1986 with the following objectives; (i) self-reliance in edible oils (ii) reduce imports almost to zero (iii) raise oilseeds production to 18 million tonnes (mt) by 1989-90 and 26 mt of oilseeds and produce 8 mt of vegetable oil by 2000 AD. However, the TMO had unable to create a sustained growth in area under groundnut and the trend was reversed. Before the initiation of TMO (TE 1986-87), the area, production and productivity of groundnut was 7.08 million ha (m ha), 5.81 mt and 795 kg per ha of which, almost 85 per cent as rainfed crop. Implementation of TMO created marked improvement in the first decade and shifted the area, production and productivity to 7.80 ha, 7.84 mt and 993 kg per acre in TE 1995-96 which recorded an increase of 11, 35 and 21 per cent, respectively. Though the irrigated cropped area has increased to 19 per cent, the country production decreased to 6.33 mt from lesser area (5.33 m ha) by shifting its productivity to 1.3 t/ha in 2011-12