Despite the early onset of monsoon as forecast by the India Meteorological Department, kharif planting is yet to pick up momentum.
Slow down
The total area covered continues to lag as compared with the corresponding period last year, according to kharif crop sowing data released by the Union Agriculture Ministry on Friday.
The area under cotton cultivation was particularly down in Haryana and Punjab, while planting of sugarcane on the other hand was marginally up.
The total area planted so far was 72.61 lakh hectares (lh), which is nearly 5 lh lower than the same period last year.
Sugarcane has been planted over 49.32 lh with major producers such as Uttar Pradesh planting 22.17 lh and Maharashtra 9.41 lh.
Losing ground
The cotton area was restricted to less than 10 lh the corresponding period last year being 12.18 lh, the official data showed.
In the case of paddy too, there was a major shortfall with the total acreage remaining 2.95 lh as against 5.2 lh previously.
The planting of pulses, coarse cereals and oilseeds too was on a lower side as compared to last year so far.
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.