The overall acreage under all kharif crops continued to be higher as farmers began sowing earlier than normal due to the early onset of monsoon. Except some parts of Chhattisgarh and Odisha, almost all the States received monsoon rainfall before its normal schedule, the India Meteorological Department said Monday.

Allaying fears of farmers, IMD’s Director-General M Mohapatra said that July, the critical month with regard to sowing operations as the maximum area is covered, will see “normal to above-normal” rain across the country, except Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Bihar, northern districts of Jharkhand and some areas of Jammu and Kashmir, where below normal rainfall has been predicted.

Oilseeds area catches up

According to the Agriculture Ministry’s data, as much as 258.57 lakh hectares (lh) have been planted under different crops in the on-going kharif season until June 27, up by 11.5 per cent from 231.84 lh a year ago. The acreage of groundnut and soyabean, which was marginally lower until June 20, has been reported high as in the past week a lot of sowing activities were noticed in key growing States of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

The area coverage under Kharif season’s main cereal paddy reported a 47.3 per cent jump at 35.02 lh from 23.78 lh a year ago, pulses acreage too has jumped 34 per cent to 19.284 lh from 14.40 lh. Oilseeds area, which was trailing until last week, has improved to 47.83 lh from 39.92 lh, up 19.8 per cent.

In the pulses category, urad (black matpe) acreage reached 2.35 from 1.42 lh, moong (green gram) at 8.58 lh from 4.30 lh. But, arhar (pigeon peas) area is down by 3.7 per cent at 8.35 lh from 8.67 lh a year ago.

Maize coverage surges

The coverage of nutri/coarse cereals has also improvedto 41.143 lh from 33.28 lh, up by 23.6 per cent. The maize area was initially trailing and now has jumped 11 per cent to 23.69 lh from 21.35 lh.

The area under jowar (sorghum) has jumped 75.7 per cent to 2.70 lh from 1.53 lh while that of bajra (millet) 41.9 per cent to 14.76 lh from 10.40 lh.

Lower oilseeds area was a concern initially, but has improved in the past week. Soyabeans acreage has reached 32.04 lh against 31.78 lh a year ago and groundnut 15.79 lh against 8.14 lh. But sunflower area has been reported a tad higher at 0.39 lh against 0.37 lh.

The cotton acreage, which was higher until last week, dropped 8.8 per cent to 54.66 lh from 59.97 lh. Similarly, the other fibre crops jute and mesta coverage is down by 3 per cent at 5.47 lh from 5.62 lh, data show.

There is marginal increase in sugarcane planting in last two weeks as it has reached 55.16 lh (55.07 lh until June 13) against 54.88 lh year-ago. There may be a revision in the current area data of sugarcane at end of the season as last year’s final estimate was 53.58 lh, lower than what the year-ago number showing.

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Published on June 30, 2025