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Kharif acreage continues to trail last year’s levels for most of the crops except cotton, but it has increased steadily over the past week.
Latest data from the Agriculture Ministry indicate that acreage, so far, is lower by about three per cent at 986.59 lakh hectares against 1,020.78 lakh ha during the same period a year ago. The decline in acreage is mainly on account of poor rainfall this year, predicted to be the weakest in five years. Despite the revival of monsoon during July and August, the seasonal rainfall deficit as on September 5 stood at 14 per cent.
As sowing data trickles in, cotton continues to gain and now stands at a record of 123.71 lakh ha with farmers in the key growing regions switching to the fibre crop from soyabean, groundnut or maize.
Sowing was affected during kharif this year due to delayed and erratic monsoon. Production of key crops such as rice, pulses, oilseeds and coarse cereals may be impacted on accounted of lower acreage and the heavy rains that lashed several parts of the country recently. Rice has been planted on about 360.61 lakh ha, marginally lower than 364.08 lakh ha in the same period a year ago. Transplantation of paddy is still on in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Chhattisgarh and is likely to be completed by the month-end.
The shortfall in acreages of oilseeds and pulses could trigger higher imports . Pulses acreage is down by about six per cent at 97.24 lakh ha over last year’s 103.69 lakh ha, while oilseeds acreage is eight per cent lower at 173.43 ha over last year’s 188.93 lakh ha.
Coverage of coarse cereals was lower by about 10 per cent at 174.74 lakh ha(192.32 lakh ha). Also, the acreage of sugarcane is down at 48.74 lakh ha from last year’s 50.32 lakh ha.
Despite a pick up in rainfall across the country, the reservoir storage is lower than last year, but higher than the 10-year average. As on September 4, the water level in the 85 important reservoirs was 110.52 billion cubic metres, which is 71 per cent of the total storage capacity of these reservoirs. The monsoon continued to remain active across the country, which should help the winter plantings. As on September 5, about 22 of the 36 metrological sub divisions had received normal rains, while 12 had scanty rains. Only one subdivision of Haryana had received deficient rains, while the South Interior Karnataka had excess rainfall.
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