Comprehensive District Agriculture Plan
FORWARD
A plan is a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something. It sets the objectives based on the careful analysis of a present situation and stating the way out how to accomplish the set objectives. The District Agriculture Plan intends to chalk out the pathway to achieve the agricultural development of the district in a specified period of time. It is the Comprehensive District Agricultural Plan in the sense that it depicts road map of achieving the physical growth of the district in relation to agriculture and allied sector.
This plan is prepared based on the information supplied by different Line Departments of the district. The plan contains the present agricultural situation of the district, its strength, weakness, opportunity and threat, set of constraints that hinder the agricultural development. A set of comprehensive objectives and the road map to accomplish these objectives in the form of projects and schemes with their action plan and financial outlay under the purview of different Departments of the district are also the major components of this plan.
ABOUT COMPREHENSIVE DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL PLAN
Background
The National Development Council (NDC), in its meeting held on 29th May, 2007 resolved that a special Additional Central Assistance Scheme (RKVY) be launched. According to this resolution, each District will have to formulate a District Agriculture Plan (DAP) by including the resources available from all the existing schemes of Agriculture and all other allied agriculture sectors. The Comprehensive District Agriculture Plan will bring all the sectors under an umbrella and avoid the duplication of efforts and utilise the resources efficiently in a more or less convergent manner.
Definition of a district Plan
A District Plan describes what a district will try to achieve over a medium term of five years and how it intends to achieve it. A Plan usually contains an analysis of the current situation of the district and particularly its needs and potentials. It should also contain a statement of
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Objectives of the District Plan
The objective of district planning is to design an integrated and participatory action plan for the development of local area in general and agriculture and allied sectors in particular. The planning process should be initiated at grass root level i.e. at village/ Gram Panchayat level and obviously the planners at village level will have to collect the basic primary data. The objectives of Comprehensive District Agriculture Plan (C-DAP) are:
• To prepare a Comprehensive District Agriculture Plan (C-DAP) through participatory process involving various organizations and stakeholders.
• To enable optimum utilization of scarce natural, physical & financial resources.
• To assess and plan for the infrastructure required to support the development of agriculture and allied sectors.
• To establish linkages with the required institutional support services and agencies, like credit, technology transfer, ICT, research organizations etc.
• To evolve an action plan for achieving sustainable agricultural growth with food security and enhancement of cropping system that will improve farmers’ income. In this process, it will be ensured that
• The Agricultural Plans are prepared for the district and then integrated into the agricultural plans of the State based on the Agro-Climatic conditions, availability of technology, trained manpower and natural resources.
• The local needs / crops / feed and fodder / animal husbandry / dairying /fisheries priorities are reflected in the plan.
• The productivity gaps for important crops, livestock and fisheries are reduced and the returns to the farmers from these are maximized.
• There are quantifiable qualitative changes in the productivities of the above components.
• The livestock and fisheries options are given due consideration as an important source of income.
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Vision of the district
• By end of XII th five year plan targeting the agricultural growth to be more than 4%.
• To increase rapid growth in agriculture through increase in investment by the State Government.
• To increase manifold in Agricultural and Allied Sectors by Public and Private Investment such as infrastructure, marketing, e-farming and cooperative farming etc.
• To reduce gap in yield of important crops through focused interventions.
• To maximize return to the farmers and allied sectors through integration of the activities of the sectors.
• To cover more areas under cultivation through sustainable development.
• To popularize watershed-basis approach for an overall development in rain fed farming.
Methodology
The plan was developed with a bottom up approach. Plans came up from Gram Sabha to Panchayat and from Panchayat to Block. Consolidating all block level plan - the District Agriculture Plan has been prepared. The gaps in information were moderated by repeated rounds of consultations with the bottom level officials (Line departments) and also supported with secondary information from the district authorities.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE DISTRICT
Introduction
Alipurduar District established on 25 th June, 2014 is the 20 th district in the state of West Bengal, India It consists of Alipurduar municipality, Falakata municipality and six community development blocks: Madarihat–Birpara, Alipurduar–I, Alipurduar–II, Falakata,
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Kalchini and Kumargram. The six blocks contain 66 gram panchayats and nine census towns. The district has its headquarters at Alipurduar. It comprises chiefly of a rural population. More than 80 per cent of its total population belong to SC/ST community. It is virtually a cauldron of different ethnic tribes like the Rajbanshi, Rabha, Metch, Santhals, Madasia, Bodo and Toto & Oraons. The topography of the land is cut across by rivers, rivulets and hills, and covered with tea gardens and forests. Major rivers that runs across the district are the Torsa, Raidak, Kaljani and Gadadhar. This District has also a rich bio-diversity in both flora and fauna and has immense envious natural beauty which may aid in future development of this district. Its degraded areas vary between 40000 to 45000 ha. Irrigated areas vary about 30 to 35% and cropping intensity near about 176 to 182%. Soil conservation is a related area of intervention. Alipurduar District enjoys a humid tropical climate with an average air temp. 24.1 oC and average annual rainfall of 3160 mm to 3500 mm. Major portion of rainfall is drained through surface of land and run into river. Entire district is woven by more or less 80 to 92 big and small rivers. Soil of this district is sandy loamy and loose textural class which is prone to soil erosion and less water holding capacity. Soil is deficient in organic matter and devoid of loamy clay. Soil is most permeable to water and nutrient leaches down quickly. The characteristics of soil coupled with heavy rainfall increases the vulnerability of the agricultural land and other land into erosion. There are problems of sand deposition along with debris & stone due to occasional change of river courses and occurrence of flood in each year. The common forms of erosion are flash, sheet, rill, gully and ravine and stream bank erosion. The soil and water conservation measures are carried out by the Soil Conservation Wing under the Agriculture Department in this District.
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Map of the District
Location and Geographical Units
Alipurduar shares the western part of Jalpaiguri District & eastern part of Assam State and is close to International borders with Bhutan in the North & South. It coordinates between 26 029N & 89 034E to 26.48 0 N 89.57 0E. It has geographical areas measuring 3383KM 2 (1306 sq mile) and population of the district is almost 17.00 lakh.
Agro-climatic Characters
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According to the classification, the Alipurduar district falls under the Tarai and Teesta alluvial zone covering all six blocks. Average annual rainfall is around 3160mm and minimum and maximum temperature varies between 10.8oC to 30.9 oC. Relative humidity is 82%. The main rivers of the district are Torsa, Jaldhaka, Raidak, Sankosh etc. The soil in the district is subjected to the following natural and man made disasters due to its topography, drainage system, soil texture, prevailing agro-climatic conditions, land use, existing cropping sequences/ practices etc.:
1. Undulated land slope causing runoff in the catchments of watersheds particularly in the northern part of the district.
2. Soil erosion due to heavy rain during the monsoon.
3. Flash floods causing sand deposition in the inundated areas of the river/rivulets.
4. Soil degradation by use of imbalanced chemical fertilizers and pesticides in the food and vegetable growing areas.
5. Poor capacity of light textured soils to retain adequate moisture and nutrients in the post monsoon period resulting soil reaction ranging from medium to highly acidic.
Table-1: Demographic profile of the district
No. of No. Area No. of Population (as per 2011 census) Taluk/ Inhabitated of (‘000 Households Block Male Female Total SC ST Literate villages GPs ) Madarihat 37670 10 50 44149 101536 100490 202026 28813 78314 120391
Kalchini 88166 11 43 62737 154829 143629 298458 30157 120282 181946
Falakata 34910 12 63 44997 102592 97017 199609 71417 59877 127335
Alipurduar- 36680 11 48 50211 111378 105553 216931 105017 36605 146702 I
Alipurduar- 33386 11 79 52032 112434 105838 218272 91253 40245 146380 II
Kumargram 51420 11 55 65571 149626 141096 290722 118281 46293 185868
District 282232 66 338 319697 732395 693623 1426018 444938 381616 908622 Total
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Table-2: Major occupation wise households
Block/ Agriculture Agricultural Cattle Sheep, Poultry Other Fisheries Others Municipality labour and goat and allied activities and buffalo pig activities related to allied rearing rearing livestock
Alipurduar-I Block 9611 14663 115 29 1 21 49 8789
Alipurduar-II 12386 16915 336 10 11 106 209 7778 Block Falakata Block 16488 18284 476 128 78 58 264 12130
Kalchini Block 4286 3273 134 122 35 29 42 24963
Kumargram Block 8005 9462 112 21 0 10 119 11473
Madarihat-Birpara 3044 3463 52 0 0 28 2 18966
District Total 53820 66060 1225 310 125 252 685 94093
Issues / Challenges emerging out 1. Agriculture Sector
1. Huge gap in productivity for most of the field crops due to traditional agriculture 2. Relatively less cropping intensity 3. Less cropped area under irrigation with low water use efficiency and poor infrastructure 4. Lack of farm mechanization 5. Poor crop diversification 6. Less use of organics and bio fertilizers. 7. Inherent soil and climatic problem 8. Small size of holding 9. Natural flood during monsoon 10. High prices of agricultural inputs 11. Lack of small scale entrepreneurship
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2. Horticulture Sector
1. Lack of organized food processing units 2. Lack of multipurpose cold storage and go downs for post harvest management of fruits, vegetables and flowers 3. Lack of awareness about high value vegetable and off season cultivation 4. Occasional glut of vegetables 5. Less reliability in planting material and technical support
3. Sericulture sector
1. Lack of realization about the potentiality of sericulture 2. Absence of cocoon market and uncertainty in price because the selling of cocoon entirely depends of traders of Malda/Murshidabad, who regulate the price.
4. Animal Resource Development
1. Poor animal health, nutrition and immunization 2. Poor milk and egg production 3. Predominance of Non-descriptive cattle 4. Unorganized green fodder cultivation 5. Poor reproductive and hygiene management
5. Department of Fishery
1. Huge gap in demand and local supply of fish 2. Underutilized available large water resources (wetlands) 3. Poor skill in fishery management 4. Seasonal capture fishery 5. Unavailability of quality fish seeds from local hatcheries 6. Lack of well equipped laboratory for soil and water quality testing and disease identification
6. Department of Marketing
1. Lack of organised market and well defined supply chain
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2. Trans border effect 3. Poor milk marketing and under utilisation of chilling plant
7. Department of Agricultural Credit
1. Poor infrastructure with low investment in agriculture and allied sector 2. Poor bank linkage for agricultural credit 3. Less crop insurance and subsidy coverage
8. Extension Service
1. Lack of updated knowledge, skill and motivation of farming community 2. Inadequate extension service 3. Research-Extension-Application gap
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