Augmenting rice productivity in Andaman and Nicobar Islands through improved varieties and seed replacement rate

مجهول. Rice is the staple cereal crop of Andaman and Nicobar Islands with annual paddy production of 12,600 t. The annual rice requirement of the Island populace is around 60,000 t. Therefore, additional requirement of about 47,400 t has to be met by shipment from mainland or enhancing local production. The present per capita availability of rice in the Islands is 40.12 g day-1 (14.64 kg yr-1) against the requirement of 175.6 g day-1 (64.1 kg yr-1) which is a cause of concern. To meet out the rice requirement, yield enhancement through varietal improvement is very crucial. The ICAR-Central Island Agricultural Research Institute, Port Blair has produced a total of 2.35 t breeder seed and 32.23 t truthfully labelled seed of rice under ICAR-Seed Project and distributed to farmers through “Seed Village Concept” during 2010-17. Thus, seed replacement rate (SRR) of rice has increased to 10.2% from 1.5%, but still there are miles to go ahead to meet the requirement. About 80% of farmers are still using their own farm saved seed. To enhance the rice production, seed chain should be strengthened which not only increases the productivity due to improved seed but also lead to quality control. Farmers’ participatory mode of seed production could be a better approach to ensure quality seed and farmers should be trained for establishment of seed villages at community level. Adoption of improved agro-techniques could enhance rice production in the Islands. Marketing and post-harvest facilities should be strengthened by government through establishing the procurement system on the basis of minimum support price (MSP) and mini-modern rice mills in the Islands, respectively.