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Gaurav Raghuvanshi

NEW DELHI, June 15

THE delay in the monsoon and continued high temperatures are likely to push back the sowing of the kharif oilseed crop in the key producing areas of south interior Karnataka and coastal Andhra Pradesh.

"The delayed onset of the monsoon, lack of pre-monsoon showers in most of the important oilseeds growing areas coupled with heat wave to severe heat wave conditions as also the lack of irrigation sources due to the deficiency in rainfall during the last crop year have delayed the land preparation operations. It is likely to affect areas where early sowing is taken up," a senior Agriculture Ministry official said.

The delay is likely to affect sesamum and groundnut sowing in parts of south interior Karnataka and coastal Andhra Pradesh.

It will also hit the pre-monsoon sowing of groundnut in over two lakh hectares of land in Gujarat and 40,000 hectares in Rajasthan.

Soybean sowing in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, apart from castor, groundnut and soyabean sowing in north Telangana area of Andhra Pradesh are also likely to be hit.

To add to the farmers' woes, key reservoirs such as Hemavathy, Harangi, Krishnarajsagar, Kabini and Almatty in Karnataka and Sriramsagar and Somasila in Andhra Pradesh, which service these oilseed belts, have "no utilisable water" according to the latest Crop Weather Watch report.

The sowing season of groundnut and soyabean extends up to mid-July in northern and western parts of the country. Groundnut sowing in kharif mono-cropped areas extends till the first week of August in the southern regions such as Rayalaseema in Andhra Pradesh, interior Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Sunflower, castor and sesamum sowing is taken up in the latter half of the kharif season.

The Ministry official, however, said that the delay did not mean that all was lost.

"The 8-10 days' delay in the onset of the monsoon on coverage under kharif oilseeds may be made up if the subsequent progress is satisfactory and there are some good spells of rain in the second fortnight of June and first fortnight of July," he said.

Despite the delay, the coverage under the kharif oilseeds like groundnut and soyabean is expected to be normal-to-above normal, he said.

Kharif oilseeds account for nearly 65 per cent of the total area under oilseed cultivation and 60 per cent of the total production in the country.

The normal area under cultivation is about 157.6 lakh hectares, of which groundnut and soybean account for 58.2 and 63.8 lakh hectares, respectively.

The delay in the sowing, however, has caused alarm in the Agriculture Ministry as the total oilseeds production in the country has declined by 37 per cent in the last five years.

Against a production of 247.48 lakh tonnes of oilseeds in 1998-99, the production fell to 155.70 lakh tonnes in 2002-03.

The domestic production of oilseeds is not adequate to meet the country's demand and the Government has offered incentives such as distribution of certified seeds under the Centrally-sponsored Oilseeds Production Programme to increase production to about 270 lakh tonnes.

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