A new variety of groundnut seed is likely to offer some encouragement to farmers even as acreage of the groundnut crop has witnessed a drastic decline in the country, leading to a severe scarcity of edible vegetable oils in the market.
Last year, the acreage was only 6.59 lakh hectares against the normal of 7.16 lakh hectares. The decline was attributed to extreme weather incidents and falling productivity of Kadiri-6 variety that was being supplied on subsidy by the State government.
However, in some good news for farmers, the Kadiri-Lepakshi 1812 variety of the groundnut seed developed at the Kadiri Agriculture Research Station is said to be drought-resistant and can withstand inundation of fields due to untimely excess rainfall just before harvest. These very weather conditions in the Rayalaseema districts, where 90% of the groundnut crop is grown, had led to severe loss to the farming community with 57 days of dry spell witnessed in July-August Khariff season and unnatural excess rain during October-end and November.
