Only pulses area below last-year level.
Monsoon rains in the last two weeks have bridged the deficit in sowing of kharif crops that persisted since the early-June start of the season.
According to agriculture ministry data, 73.3 million hectare (MH) has been covered under the kharif crops by Friday, a 1.2% increase on year. A week ago, there was a 4.2% gap.
Thanks to rains over northwest, central and southern parts of the country in the last fortnight, paddy transplanting has been up by 2.7% on year. A week ago, it was lagging by 9.8% and the gap was as high as 24% a fortnight ago.
At present, only Jharkhand (-45%) and Bihar (-41%) are reporting deficient rainfall. Rest of the key paddy producing states – West Bengal, Telangana, Chhattistgarh and Odisha – have received adequate rainfall in the last one week.
Ministry officials that total kharif area sown till now is around 67% of normal kharif sown area of 109 MH. “The sowing activities have picked up pace in the last couple of weeks ,” an agriculture ministry official told FE.
Sowing of pulses – tur, urad and moong – is lagging by 9.8% on year so far while the area under oilseeds, including groundnut, soybean and sunflower, is currently up 3.3% on year.
While sugarcane planting is up by 5% on year, the area under coarse cereals such as maize, bajra and ragi has increased by 4.8%.
Sowing of cotton, a cash crop, is marginally less than a year ago. Officials said sowing of crops would continue till the end of the next month. The harvesting season begins from October 1.
Meanwhile, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the cumulative rainfall is 3% more than the benchmark – long period average (LPA) – on Friday.
The met department has said 66% of the 717 districts have so far received normal or excess rainfall while the same was deficient and scanty in the remaining 263 districts.
Rainfall in the southern peninsula and east and north-east regions have been 13% and 22% below the LPA so far. However north-west India and central India regions have received 41% and 11% more rainfall than LPA respectively.
The IMD had predicted extremely heavy rainfall to continue over Konkan, Madhya Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Vidarbha and Odisha over the next two days.
The met department on June 30 predicted ‘normal’ rainfall for the month of July, when around 40% of the monsoon precipitation typically occurs.
Last month, the government had hiked the minimum support prices (MSP) of the key kharif crops for 2023-24 season (July-June) by 6-10.4%, the highest increase since 2018-19. The MSP for paddy, the key kharif crop, is fixed at Rs 2,183/quintal, up 7% on year.
India’s foodgrain production rose by 5% on year to a new record of 330.5 MT for the 2022-23 crop year, according to the agriculture ministry.
Source:financialexpress.com