Rabi sowing in the country set a new record by covering an area of 675 lakh hectares (lha), nearly 2 per cent more than 662 lha planted in the entire season in 2019-20 till end of this week, according to data released by the Agriculture Ministry on Friday.

The sowing in the current season is not over yet.

All major rabi crops, barring a few coarse cereals, surpassed the area planted in the previous season, which was by far the best, already. At 345 lha, acreage of wheat is at all-time high. The wheat sown area in the corresponding week last year was close to 335 lha, which moved up slightly to around 336 lha by the end of the previous rabi season. Much of the increase in wheat planting was reported from Madhya Pradesh — which planted an additional area of 8.3 lha and Maharashtra 1 lha more.

bl23Rabijpg
 

Other crops

Gram and mustard are two other crops which have done exceedingly well in terms of coverage. Gram has been planted over nearly 111 lha, while mustard fields covered close to 74 lha. At the end of the previous rabi season, the area of gram and mustard was around 107 lha and 70 lha, respectively.

The area under rice was close to 30 lha (26 lha). Much of the increase in rice area came from Telangana which planted an additional 3.49 lha under rice.

However, there is a dip in area under coarse cereals. As compared to nearly 55 lha planted in the same week last year, coarse cereals covered only around 51 lha so far.

Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar congratulated farmers in the country for their tireless hard work. “Despite the corona epidemic, farmers have achieved record area coverage under rabi crops as well as in kharif season, which is remarkable,” Tomar said.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW