With a revival in monsoon and the rains becoming widespread, kharif sowing across the country has picked up momentum as compared to last week, but the area covered so far this season remains 10 per cent lower than the corresponding period last year.

Slow pace

According to latest kharif crop sowing data released by the Agriculture Ministry on Friday, the planting was taken up on around 502 lakh hectares (lh) as against 557 lh covered during the same period last season. But the sowing is yet to cross the half of what is normal for a year.

The announcement of minimum support prices (MSP) for kharif crops last week and the improved monsoon activity across the country seemed to have a positive impact as the shortfall in sowing came down to 10 per cent from 14 per cent last week.

Rice, pulses gain

The area under rice cultivation increased to 116.92 lh — 8 per cent lower than 126.92 lh in the same week last year.

Among the major crops that have seen an increase over that in the previous season are urad and soyabean, whose acreages were up 15.17 and 3.57 per cent respectively.

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Oilseeds, as a whole, is still 13.42 per cent lower at 63.59 lh as compared to same week last year.

Pulses, a laggard till last week, covered a higher area this week to bring down the shortfall to less than 10 per cent. The area under pulses so far was 60.56 lh (66.97 lh).

Cotton scenario

There are signs that cotton cultivation is picking in Maharashtra and Rajasthan, even though there was a drastic shortfall in area under the fibre in Gujarat.

Cotton acreage in the country was at 77.5 lakh hectares as of today compared to 90.8 lakh hectares.

Despite many minor millet crops getting a better MSP, it surprisingly didn’t reflect in the cropped area.

As compared to 66.27 lh in the previous season, coarse cereals were planted only on 57.35 lh till this week.

Storage levels

Meanwhile, water levels in major 91 reservoirs in the country was 38.16 billion cubic metre (BCM), which is 20 per cent of the total storage capacity.

The water levels are 4 per cent higher than the same period last year. This increase is mainly on account of substantial increase in storage levels reported in the reservoirs in south India.

Storage in the water bodies in southern India is 16.66 BCM, double than what was reported during the corresponding period last year, an official release said.

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