Uttarakhand - Department of Land Resources

4. Irrigation facilities are poor – Hills mostly rain-fed. Focused action plans along with
the watershed development made for optimizing the resources.
5. Information, transportation and communication infrastructure lacking. This
infrastructure needs to be developed with public and private sector investments.
6. Lack of Markets and marketing facilities and infrastructure. – Focused development
of supply-chain of produce from village markets to consumer is needed.
7. High Migration from the state: A big number of able bodied men leave the villages for
work in towns, army etc. leaving women to do most of the household work as well as
cultivation. This leads to subsistence farming with the least amount of effort.
ANALYSIS OF ISSUES IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION
In Uttarakhand State, agriculture covers 7.81 lakh hectares. Out of which Hill regions
covers 4.43 lakh hectares around 56.8 percent and the plain region covers 3.37 lakh
hectares 43.2 percent. Irrigated areas in the Hills are around 10 percent whereas in
the plain areas it is around 85 – 90 percent.
There are nearly 9.26 lakh farmers in the state out of which nearly 8.16 lakh farmers
are small & marginal farmers, which is around 88 percent of the total farmers. Small
and marginal holdings of these farmers adversely affect production of agriculture
crops in the state.
Production of cereals in the state is around 8.64 lakh M.T. & in plains is around 9.53
lakh M. T. Productivity in the state cereals in Hill region is around 13.05
quintals/hectare and in the plains is around 28.4 quintals/hectare. The productivity is
more than double in plains than in Hills.
Requirement of the cereals is around 14.82 lakh M.T. whereas the production is
around 18.18 lakh M.T. The production of pulses and oil seeds around 0.23 lakh MT
& 0.18 lakh MT respectively where as requirement of pulse & oil seeds are around
2.74 lakh MT & 2.08 lakh MT respectively. Production of coarse cereals is done on
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