Gujarat - Region Profile

Gujarat is a state in western India. It has an area of 19.6 million hectare with a coastline of 1,600 km, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula, and a population in excess of 60 million. The state registered 12.8% agricultural growth in the last five years against the national average of 2%. Gujarat recorded highest decadal agricultural growth rate of 10.97% among all the Indian states. The three main sources of growth in Gujarat's agriculture are from cotton production, the rapid growth of high-value crops such as fruits and vegetables, and from wheat production, which saw an annual average growth rate of 28% between 2000 and 2008. Other major produce includes rice, wheat, maize, pearl millet, groundnut, cotton, mustard, sesame, pigeon pea, green gram, sugarcane, mango, banana, sapota, lime, guava, tomato, potato, onion, cumin, garlic, isabgul and fennel. Table 1 illustrates the current area, productivity and production statistics of major crops in Gujarat.

Nutrient consumption in Gujarat in the past decade is given in Fig. 2. The consumption of total fertilizer nutrients in Gujarat increased by 16.6%, from a total 1.342 million MT during 2012-13 to 1.565 million MT during 2013-14. During Kharif 2013, total nutrient consumption increased by 2.8% and in Rabi by 34.4% over the respective seasons in the previous year. Kharif: Rabi share in total consumption changed from 56:44 during 2012-13 to 50:50 during 2013-14.

The consumption of N at 1.159 million MT, P₂O₅ at 0.315 million MT and K₂O and 0.091 million MT represented increase of 15%, 22.3% and 18.5%, respectively, during 2013-14 over 2012-13. NPK use ratio changed from 13.2:3.4:1 to 12.8:3.5:1 during the period. The per hectare consumption of total fertilizer nutrients declined from 102.5 kg to 119.5 kg during the period. Using the area and production of major crops, the total nutrient (N, P₂O₅ and K₂O) removal by each crop was calculated and a nutrient balance sheet was prepared (table 2).

Table 1: Latest Crop Production Statistics of Gujarat-2012-13

Parameters	Rice	Wheat	Maize	Total Cereals	Gram	Total Pulses	Total Foodgrains	Total Oilseeds	Sugarcane	Cotton#
Area	701	1024	458	2922	172	660	3582	2452	176	2497
Production	1541	2944	791	6484	168.2	572.2	7056.2	2705	12690	8850
Productivity	2198	2875	1727	2219	978	867	1970	1103	72102	603

Area ('000 ha); Production ('000 tonnes); Productivity (kg/ha); # Production and Productivity in 1000 bales of 180 kg each



Table 2: Nutrient balance sheet for major crops of Gujarat 2012-13

Crop	Area (in '000 ha)	Production (in '000 tonnes)	Nutrient Removal (kg/tonne)			Total Removal (tonnes)
			N	P2O5	K2O	N	P2O5	K2O
Rice	701	1541	20.1	11.2	30	30974.1	17259.2	46230
Wheat	1024	2944	24.4	8.6	32.8	71833.6	25318.4	96563.2
Maize	458	791	8.2	3.1	15.5	6486.2	2452.1	12260.5
Total Pulses	660	572.2	40	5	20	22888	2861	11444
Total Oilseeds	2452	2705	54	14	46	146070	37870	124430
Sugarcane	176	12690	1.7	0.2	2	21573	2538	25380
		Total removal by major crops				299824.9	88298.7	316307.7
		Total fertilizer consumption in Gujarat				1007700	257820	76460
		Consumption * Efficiency factor				403080	77346	53522
		Balance/Deficit				103255.1	-10952.7	-262786

Efficiency of N=40%; P2O5= 30%; and K2O=70%

*Crop production and fertilizer use data are retrieved from Fertilizer Statistics, 2013-14, The Fertilizer Association of India, New Delhi