Over six weeks into the kharif season, Andhra Pradesh has reported a huge deficit in sowings, with farmers completing only 10 lakh hectares (lh) so far against the average as-on-date coverage of 15.16 lh.

Poor and insufficient spread of rains has resulted in the poor pace of sowings. All key crops such as paddy, cotton, groundnut and redgram have registered a decline in the acreage.

“The rice bowl areas of East and West Godavari districts have fared badly in sowings so far. Sowing under both the Krishna and Godavari detas are delayed. They are behind at least a month,” Keshava Rao, President of All-India Kisan Sabha (Andhra Pradesh), told BusinessLine.

Kharif sowing picks up pace as monsoon gets active

Farmers in the two districts have planted paddy only in half of the 2.60 lh that they covered in the last kharif.

Paddy has been planted on 3.70 lh so far in the State against the 4.63 lh compared with the same period a year ago. While groundnut has been planted on 2.35 lh (4.05 lh) so far, cotton coverage is 2.40 lh (3.06 lh).

The State targets to cover a total area of 38.14 lh across all crops against 37.35 lh last year.

Hope of revival

As the catchment areas of the upper riparian States have been receiving rains in the past one week, the Agriculture Department hopes for a revival in sowings in the next few days.

“Dams are getting filled up thanks to the heavy rains in the catchment areas of the Krishna and Godavari rivers. This will help farmers cover the lost ground,” said a government official.

KVV Prasad, Secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Rythu Sangham, too, expects a revival in the next one or two weeks. “Paddy sowing has been delayed, but we expect a revival as we are receiving rains in the last 3-4 days,” he said.

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