The Hindu Business Line : Bumper production likely in mustard/rapeseed

According to the Agriculture Ministry's latest Crop Weather Watch report released here on Friday, an area of 57.78 lakh hectares has already been sown under rapeseed-mustard during the ongoing rabi planting season.

This is not only higher than the `normal' acreage of 53 lakh hectares, but also more than the progressive coverage of 54.92 lakh hectares recorded during this period last year.

The country produced 5.83 million tonnes (mt) of rapeseed-mustard in 2003-04, which marked a recovery from the output levels of 3.92 mt, 5.08 mt and 4.19 mt during 2002-03, 2001-02 and 2000-01.

Going by the acreages so far, it looks as though production this year will cross the six-mt-mark, though it would probably still take an effort to hit the all-time high of 6.66 mt achieved in 1996-97.

This year, the progressive acreage has gone up significantly in Rajasthan (up 4.5 lakh hectares), Madhya Pradesh (up one lakh hectares), Uttar Pradesh (up 0.7 lakh hectares), Haryana and Gujarat (up 0.4 lakh hectares each), while dropping in West Bengal (minus 3.3 lakh hectares) and Chhattisgarh (down 0.4 lakh hectares).

The overall coverage under rabi oilseeds, too, has been so far reported higher this year, at 81.22 lakh hectares, against last year's corresponding progressive acreage of 80.56 lakh hectares.

While, besides rapeseed-mustard, the area sown under safflower has also gone up (from 3.37 lakh hectares to 3.53 lakh hectares), it has, however, shrunk in others, including rabi groundnut (from 3.48 lakh hectares to 3.39 lakh hectares), sunflower (from 11.69 lakh hectares to 10.43 lakh hectares) and linseed (from 5.07 lakh hectares to 4.78 lakh hectares).

Our Chennai Bureau reports: Coverage of wheat and rice continues to trail but sowing of coarse cereals, particularly jowar, has picked up.

So far, 127.47 lakh hectares have been covered under wheat against 127.51 lakh hectares during the same period a year ago. In the case of rice, 3.43 lakh hectares have been covered as against 3.73.

Among coarse cereals, jowar has been planted on 47.58 lakh hectares (47.38 lakh hectares), while maize acreage is down a tad at 3.41 lakh hectares (3.79 lakh hectares). The area under barley is up marginally at 4.53 lakh hectares (4.25 lakh hectares).

A little over 55 lakh hectares have been covered under gram as against 56.81 lakh hectares last year, while overall pulses coverage is up at 89.38 lakh hectares (88.37 lakh hectares).

The water storage level continues to better than last year, with the reservoir levels being 5 per cent higher than last year during the same period.

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