The socio-economic review of the government for 2008-09, which was tabled in the state Assembly among the Budget papers during the ongoing Budget Session, claimed that production of food grains went up from 58,82,000 tonnes in 2006-07 to 82,06,000 tonnes in 2007-08, a growth of 39.51 per cent.

Wheat, rice, jowar and bajra were among the major food crops whose production went up, the report says.

According to the report, which

focuses on the development of important sectors of the state’s economy, the production of wheat and rice went up by 39.46 and 29.18 per cent respectively in 2007-08, over the previous year.

Likewise, the production of jowar and bajra witnessed an increase of 4.6 and 36.57 per cent in 2007-08 over the previous year.

Though no specific reason has been given for the increase, the document says that there was an increase in sowing areas of wheat from 10,72,000 hectares in 2006-07 to 12,74,000 hectares in 2007-08.

The cultivation area of rice also went up from 6,89,000 hectares in 2006-07 to 7,59,000 hectares in 2007-08.

Among the non-food crops, the production of groundnut witnessed the highest jump of 78 per cent, from 18,50,000 tonnes in 2006-07 to 32,99,000 tonnes in 2007-08, despite the fact that the area under groundnut cultivation went up by only 0.21 per cent from the previous year.

Agriculture department officials say that the high yield of groundnut is due to the shift in cultivation from Saurashtra to regions in north Gujarat where the yield is reported to be very high.

According to the report, the area under cotton cultivation went up by only two per cent, from 23,72,000 hectares in 2006-07 to 24,22,000 hectares in 2007-08, while the production went up to 82,76,000 bales from 78,76,000.

The document says that the seeds of various crops sold by the Gujarat State Seeds Corporation have seen a rising trend every year, in the last three years. Giving statistics, it said that 1,20,678 quintals of seeds were sold in the state in 2005-06, which went up to 1,70,885 quintals in 2006-07 and 1,81,340 quintals in 2007-08.

The document further says that the production of horticultural crops had also increased significantly. During 2007-08, the production of fruits, vegetables, spices and flowers was 60.20 lakh tonnes, 74.03 lakh tonnes, 9.67 lakh tonnes and 0.84 lakh tonnes respectively as against 53.58 lakh tonnes, 60.63 lakh tonnes, 6.29 lakh tonnes and 0.55 lakh tonnes respectively, during 2006-07.

According to the document, the production of fruits, vegetables, spices and flowers is estimated to be 66 lakh, 80 lakh, 10 lakh and 0.90 lakh tonnes respectively in 2008-09.