India, July 12 -- Pricing policies, market infrastructure and technologies that make cultivation of alternative crops viable are crucial
Rice is the principal food crop in Odisha occupying about 63 per cent of cultivated area in the kharif season. Since the 1990s, the state government is trying to diversify the area under kharif paddy to crops such as pulses and oilseeds under a Crop Diversification Programme (CDP) by providing incentives in cash and kind.
Under CDP, the state government is engaged in promoting pulses, oilseeds and other commercial crops by alternative crop demonstrations, farm mechanisation and value addition. However, in spite of good efforts, crop diversification has decreased in the state in the past two decades, show...