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New Delhi, India: Punjab Agro Industries Corporation (PAIC) and United Breweries (UBL) will sign an agreement on contract farming barley, India Times reported. The pact is to cover around 10,000 acres this year, with a plan to cover one lakh acres in the forthcoming season. The coverage will be extended to 2.5 lakh acres by 2005, with the option of extending it further to cover half a million acres or more in the successive years.

Pushing barley as an integral part of the government’s efforts to bring back the three-crop cycle to Punjab even while de-focussing from foodgrain cultivation, state chief minister Amarinder Singh today announced the joint initiative which involves an assured buyback commitment from UBL to the government.

The PAIC, in turn, will initiate the programme with the farmers of Punjab, primarily in the districts of Mansa, Bathinda, Muktsar where barley farming is being extended as part of the new agreement. UBL will provide the technology support to farmers, as part of the current contract farming agreement on barley. Barley is already being grown in Patiala and Sangrur districts.

The high-yielding varieties of barley developed by UBL and extensively grown and tested by them in collaboration with PAICL in the past one year are capable of a yield of 20-22 quintals per acre, sources said. That would work out to around 2,20,000 quintals of barley in the first phase of contract farming.

Punjab Agro will have two other programmes with state farmers. One, for commercial grain production and the other, for seed multiplication. “Along with the move away from the unsustainable paddy-wheat cycle, our aim is to introduce a three-crop cycle in Punjab which would provide better returns and, at the same time, give farmers additional income,” Mr Singh said. “The state will now focus on becoming a major supplier of premium malting barley to the country and ultimately to Asia as part of the concerted effort to diversify agriculture,” he added. Sources said Punjab Agro, in collaboration with UB, would use the resources of Punjab Agricultural University and skilled farmers of the state to “rapidly multiply the two-row Malting Barley VJM 315 to provide seed for planting in one lakh acres in the forthcoming season. Thereafter, the variety would be multiplied to cover a larger area of over two lakh acres.”

According to Mr Kalyan Ganguly, MD, UB, the VJM 315 two-row variety of barley being launched today was entirely different from the conventional six-row barley as it was bigger and heavier in grain, had ideal protein content of 9.5%-11%, higher yields vis-a-vis the conventional crop, resistant to a number of diseases, required relatively far lower inputs and performed far better under cold conditions with a 125-day crop duration cycle.


05 August, 2003