The last-minute spurt in rice planting in West Bengal, Assam and Karnataka has pushed the rice-sown area to a record 49 lakh hectares (lh) even as the current rabi season’s total sowing wound up to 636 lh, nearly 1.86 per cent lower than last year’s 648 lh.

It may be recalled that rice acreage during last year’s rabi season stood at 43 lh.

According to the final rabi sowing data released by the Agriculture Ministry last Friday, the area under wheat almost touched 300 lh, which similar to last year, while pulses and coarse cereals were nearly 5 and 15 per cent lower than the corresponding period last year.

 

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At 80.4 lh, oilseeds, on the other hand, remained more or less the same as in the last rabi season, the data showed.

While the increase in wheat sowing in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh has somewhat compensated for the drop in wheat acreage in Maharashtra and Gujarat, the States are reeling under a drought.

The drought in Maharashtra was what dragged down the pulses and coarse cereal cultivation. Karnataka and Maharashtra are the other two States that reported a lower area under pulses cultivation.

Karnataka has also sown less coarse cereals this time as compared to the last season, despite the State government announcing financial incentives to encourage the cultivation for nutri-cereals.

While gram cultivation is down by about 10 per cent as compared last year, there has been a nearly 31 per cent spike in kulthi cultivation to 5.55 lh.

Among coarse cereals, jowar cultivation is down by 19 per cent to 25 lh and maize by around 10 per cent to 15.56 lh.

Thanks to an increase in mustard/rapeseed cultivation in Rajasthan as compared to last year, oilseeds have been able to match up in area, even though the area under oilseeds cultivation is lower than the normal in many States, including Karnataka.

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