The Hindu Business Line : Wheat acreage deficit narrows down

Crop scenario
Dry weather and virtually no rains in the whole of central and North-West India have affected wheat sowing.
Projections of rainfall next week could lead to a fall in night temperatures and an extended winter.

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Jan. 4 Wheat planting is likely to end up at around 270 lakh hectares (lh) during the current rabi season, which would be 10 lh below the total coverage of last year. According to the Agriculture Ministry’s latest Crop Weather Watch report released on Friday, farmers have till now sown 265.71 lh against 274.65 lh during the corresponding period last season and 279.84 lh for the whole of 2006-07.

Main factors

Acreages have dropped in Uttar Pradesh (from 91.72 lh to 86.82 lh), Madhya Pradesh (39.93 lh to 35.67 lh), Rajasthan (22.58 lh to 21.95 lh), Bihar (21.93 lh to 21.38 lh), Himachal Pradesh (3.61 lh to 3.24 lh), Jammu & Kashmir (2.47 lh to 1.57 lh) and Chhattisgarh (1.49 lh to 1.36 lh).

The main factors that have impacted coverage are dry weather and virtually no rains in the whole of central and North-West India, belated start of crushing by sugar mills in UP (preventing farmers from vacating cane area for planting wheat) and shortage of crucial nutrients such as di-ammonium phosphate at the farmers’ end.

Sunny side

On the brighter side though, Punjab has reported higher sowing (from 34.25 lh to 34.80 lh) and so have Haryana (23.73 lh to 24.15 lh), Gujarat (11.53 lh to 13.53 lh), Maharashtra (10.48 lh to 10.49 lh), West Bengal (3.50 lh to 4.0 lh), Uttarakhand (3.78 lh to 3.80 lh) and Karnataka (2.40 lh to 2.41 lh).

The extra one lh covered in Punjab and Haryana is significant because it would translate into an additional four lakh tonnes of wheat, taking last year’s average yield of 4.2 tonnes per hectare in these two States. The Centre’s hope is that the increased acreage in Punjab and Haryana – which is a high-yielding belt with assured irrigation facilities – will make up for the reduced area in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, where average per hectare productivity stood at 1.8 and 2.7 tonnes, respectively last year.

Aid from rainfall

But this would be subject to good weather – no abnormal rise in temperatures till late March and untimely rains accompanied by hailstorms after the crop has crossed the flowering stage. The good news is that the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted rains/thundershowers across North-West India next week, courtesy the onset of a western disturbance over the region. This is expected to lead to a fall in night temperatures and hopefully an extended winter.

The prospects are less rosy when it comes to rabi oilseeds, particularly rapeseed-mustard. Progressive area reported under this most important rabi oilseed crop is lower this time, at 58.66 lh, compared with last year’s corresponding 66.37 lh. Acreage has fallen in Rajasthan (24.03 lh against 28.97 lh), Haryana (5.50 lh against 6.35 lh), M.P. (5.36 lh against 6.90 lh), Gujarat (3.41 lh against 3.60 lh) and Assam (2.62 lh against 2.81 lh), while rising in U.P. (8.02 lh against 7.70 lh) and West Bengal (4.50 lh against 4.35 lh).

Rapeseed, sunflower

The total area sown so far under all rabi oilseeds is lower this year at 81.90 lh, over last year’s cumulative figure of 93.07 lh. Besides rapeseed-mustard, acreages have declined for sunflower (from 10.71 lh to 8.92 lh), safflower (3.41 lh to 2.98 lh), groundnut (5.62 lh to 4.99 lh) and linseed (4.99 lh to 4.63 lh).

In gram (chana), too, there has been a fall in coverage from 78.29 lh to 77.60 lh. This has been more so in M.P. (from 26.83 lh to 24.19 lh), U.P. (7.95 to 6.02), Karnataka (7.74 to 7.07) and Maharashtra (11.81 to 11.75). But these have been partly compensated by higher plantings in Rajasthan (from 11.71 lh to 12.85), Andhra Pradesh (6.0 to 6.48) and Chhattisgarh (2.37 to 2.79).

Pulses dip

The overall progressive rabi pulses area has dipped from 129.76 lh to 126.36 lh, with these being from 15.52 to 13.76 for lentil (masur), 7.74 lh to 6.61 lh for peas (matar), 6.11 lh to 5.54 lh for kulthi (horsegram) and moong (4.76 lh to 4.47 lh). However, extra area has come under urad (from 5.84 lh to 7.02 lh) and lathyrus (4.52 lh to 5.08 lh).

On the coarse cereals front, the area under jowar so far this year, at 46.31 lh, is lower than the 47.22 lh of the corresponding period of 2006, while it has increased for maize (from 8.11 lh to 9.48 lh) and barley (from 6.43 lh to 7.18 lh).