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The total acreage under all rabi crops has crossed 600 lakh hectares (lh) as on Friday, up one per cent from a year-ago, while the sowing area under key winter-sown cereal wheat has crossed the last five year’s average of 303 lh. This may ensure another bumper harvest of food grains if the weather remains favourable over the next three months.
The area under wheat was reported at 305.47 lh compared with 309.68 lh during the same period a year ago, the Agriculture Ministry said in its weekly update. Though higher coverage has been reported from Madhya Pradesh (by 4.48 lh), West Bengal (0.10 lh) and Assam (0.03 lh), all other main growing States have reported a drop in acreage. Uttar Pradesh (down by 0.41 lh), Punjab (-0.24 lh), Haryana (-1.39 lh), Rajasthan (-1.61 lh), Bihar (-1.48 lh), Gujarat (-1.23 lh) and Maharashtra (-1.19 lh) are the States where the area has dropped.
As per target set by States, the total area under wheat may decline to about 351 lh during the current rabi season against last year’s 355 lh (actual). The Centre has also been working to cut the area by increasing productivity so that the grain’s overall output does not fall and more planting area made available to grow oilseeds.
Mustard acreage
The acreage of mustard/rapeseed has jumped by 21.4 per cent to 86.98 lh as on December 24 from 71.62 lh a year-ago and nearly 3 lh were covered during the past week. Agriculture scientists are now expecting the area under mustard to be around 90 lh which will be a challenge for the government to sustain unless policy intervention is placed in advance to check its price fall when the crop comes to market in March next. For 2021-22, the target was set at 75.8 lh with a production of 12.24 mt. Mustard output was 10.1 mt in 2020-21.
The total area under oilseeds has increased 19.6 per cent to 95.04 lh from 79.46 lh year-ago, mainly because of higher area under mustard. As much as 96 per cent of the normal sowing area of 625.14 lh under all rabi crops have been covered. Currently, the acreage is 600.65 lh against 593.50 lh in the year-ago period.
Winter-grown pulses were reported at 144.47 lh, which is 2.4 per cent lower than year-ago’s 147.96 lh. The season’s normal area (five-year average) is 146.14 lh whereas the acreage reached 167.38 lh last year. As the weekly increase in pulses was about 7 lh, another 20 lh may be covered.
The acreage of gram continued to be near about the same level as 102.51 lh a year ago. Last year, the total area under gram was about 112 lh. Area under masur is up 4.3 per cent 16.30 lh, while barley coverage is a tad lower at at 6.49 lh from 6.52 lh year-ago, the data show.
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