The Hindu Business Line : Kharif acreage up in most crops except rice

The country seems poised for yet another record harvest of cotton and soyabean this year. Having produced an all-time-high 226.96 lakh bales of cotton and 88.57 lakh tonnes of soyabean in 2006-06 (as per the Agriculture Ministry’s ‘fourth advance’ estimates), there is every possibility of even these levels being exceeded.

According to the Ministry’s Crop Weather Watch report, released here on Friday, the progressive area sown under cotton in the current cotton season, at 86.24 lakh hectares (lh), is 4.5 lh more than in 2006 and has already exceeded the normal coverage of 83.73 lh. And significantly, out of the total 86.24 lh planted till now, 53.32 lh is reported to be under Bt cotton. Similarly, soyabean area is reckoned to have almost touched 85 lh or a quarter more than the normal.

But it’s not just cotton and soyabean farmers who have planted more. The copious monsoon rainfall — and, more important, its overall good spatial and temporal spread —has led to increased acreages under kharif pulses, coarse grains (particularly bajra and maize) and sugarcane. The only exceptions so far have been paddy and jute. Paddy (rice) planting is lower by about one lh, mainly on account of Uttar Pradesh (UP), Bihar, Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Chhattisgarh. With the monsoon picking up momentum in these areas, transplanting is likely to go up and cover up the present deficit.

As per the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) data, during the south-west monsoon season (June-September) the country as a whole has received an area-weighted rainfall of 565 millimetres (mm) as on August 8. This is 6.6 per cent more than the ‘normal’ (long period average or LPA) of 530 mm for this period.

Out of the country’s 36 meteorological subdivisions, cumulative precipitation has been ‘excess’ (120 per cent or more of LPA) in 14 and ‘above normal’ (100-120 per cent of LPA) in nine. Of the remaining 13, monsoon has been ‘within normal’ (80-100 per cent of LPA) in nine, leaving only four sub-divisions that are ‘deficient’ (rainfall being 80 per cent or below LPA).

The areas where the monsoon’s progress has not been fully satisfactory are mainly UP, eastern MP, Marathwada and the North-East, with all other regions registering normal to heavy showers.

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