National Agricultural Development Scheme

Under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, the Agriculture Department is providing subsidies to farmers for date cultivation. Under this scheme, 17 districts have been selected which will cultivate dates through offshoot and tissue culture techniques. Under this scheme, a 75% subsidy will be provided to the farmers for cultivating dates. The main objective of this scheme is to encourage farmers to produce various crops. In this context, the Rajasthan government is providing subsidies to the farmers, so that they can produce crops at lower cost. Besides, the government is also providing subsidies for fruits and vegetables. 

National Agricultural Development Scheme will be started in Barmer, Churu, Sirohi, Jaisalmer, Sriganganagar, Hanumangarh, Jodhpur, Pali, Jalore, Naugar, Bikaner and Jhunjhunu districts. If a farmer cultivates dates in these districts, he will be provided benefits under this scheme. In this, a 75% subsidy will be provided to the farmers for planting date crops produced through tissue and offshoot technology. 

These techniques will be used for date palm cultivation 

Tissue culture and offshore technology will be used for date cultivation. In this, farmers will be given a subsidy for farming of 0.5 to 4 hectares. Date palm gardens are prepared from plants grown using these techniques. Farmers will be given a subsidy of Rs 3000 per plant or 75% of the unit cost for planting plants grown using tissue culture technology. If the farmer cultivates dates using the offshore technique, he will get a 75% price of Rs 1100 per plant. Along with the purchase of date palm saplings, a 75% value of Rs 1500 will also be provided for the establishment of date palm roots. 

Also read: Date farming makes the life of farmers happy

For sowing dates per hectare, farmers will need 8 male plants and 148 female plants. Female varieties of dates include Barahi, Medjool, Khadrabi, Khooneji, Khalas, Sagai and Halawi. Among the male varieties, the subsidy will be provided only for Ghanami and Al in the City. 

It costs more than Rs 3.7 lakh to establish a new garden along with Rs 70-75 lakh on planting material by the government. Date crop starts bearing fruits after 3 years of sowing. Around 3000 kg of date crop is produced per hectare. Farmers can easily earn Rs 4.8 lakh from one hectare by selling fresh fruits. After five years, the yield of the date crop increases, and a farmer can get a yield of 10-12 tons per hectare from the date crop. Through the market price, a farmer can earn a net profit of Rs 3.5 lakh per hectare.