Kharif acreage down 2% but cotton planting up by 6%

With farmers in central India deciding to plant more cotton and soyabean, there was a substantial pick-up in kharif sowing this week even though the area covered remained a tad lower than that in the corresponding week last year, according to data released by the Agriculture Ministry on Friday.

Till date, farmers have sown a total of 975 lakh hectares (lh), nearly 2 per cent lower than 998 lh planted in the corresponding week of previous kharif season. Among the crops that reported higher area are cotton, soyabean, maize, bajra and arhar.

Increase in planting in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Telangana has helped the total cotton area to go up to 124 lh — nearly 6 per cent more than the 117 lh sown in the same week last year. Similarly, both Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra reported higher area under soyabean crop, helping oilseeds to surpass the area planted during the same week in the previous season. Even though groundnut sowing picked up in Gujarat, the key growing State, the total area is down by nearly 2 per cent because of poor sowing in Rajasthan and Karnataka.

What actually brought down the overall sown area, however, was the poor rice planting in the rain-deficient eastern States. All major eastern States of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal reported a shortfall of 15 lh in rice planting till this week.

Even though the area under arhar increased as compared to same period last year, there was a shortfall in planting of both moong and urad. As a result, the total acreage remained 3 per cent lower than last year at 125 lh.

Maize and bajra were the crops that picked up momentum among coarse cereals, which is now in the positive as compared to last year. While maize is planted over 75 lh (73.7 lh), bajra is grown in 65 lh (62 lh).

As expected, sugarcane planting this year is lower by nearly 6 per cent at 52 lh with many cane-growing States including Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Maharashtra reporting lesser area under the cash crop.

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