Sowing of key rabi crops such as mustard, gram (chana), lentil (masur) and barley have touched or exceeded the season’s normal acreage this year.
But, 8 per cent of the area is still to be covered in wheat to reach its last five year’s average of 303.06 lakh hectares (lh), according to latest weekly update by the Union Agriculture Ministry.
Wheat sowing stands at 277.71 lh as of Friday, which is 1 per cent down from the year-ago level. As per target set by States, total area under wheat may decline to about 351 lh in the current season from last year’s 355 lh (actual).
Missing the target
Madhya Pradesh — which emerged as largest wheat-procuring State — has already reduced the target to 94.82 lh this year as there was a big gap between last year’s actual acreage (88 lh) and target (103 lh).
“Going by the reports from different States, wheat acreage may marginally decline from last year as farmers have shifted to mustard in many places.
“The targeted production of 110 million tonnes (mt) is likely to be missed and this is good for the government as pressure on procurement will also ease to some extent,” said an agriculture scientist.
The country produced a record 109.52 mt of wheat last year, of which the Centre had procured 43.34 mt, worth ₹85,604 crore (at MSP value).
Farmers have planted more than 89 per cent of the normal sowing area of 625.14 lh under all rabi crops as of December 17 and it is up by 2.6 per cent from the year-ago period. Total area under all crops recorded at 546.08 lh ( 532.08 lh).
Oilseeds output
The acreage of mustard/rapeseed has jumped by 23.7 per cent at 84.23 lh as on Friday from 68.11 lh year-ago and more than 3 lakh hectares were covered in last week only. As sowing window of mustard is already over, any further increase in data could be due to late compilation, officials said. For 2021-22, the target was set at 75.8 lh with a production of 12.24 mt. The mustard output was 10.1 mt in 2020-21.
Total areas under oilseeds have jumped to 91.75 lh (75.22 lh) mainly because of higher area under mustard.
Cumulative rainfall from the period October 1 to December 17 has been 47 per cent more than normal for the country as a whole and about 82 per cent of the area has received normal are higher rainfall during this period.
Pulses edge down
The areas under all winter-grown pulses reported at 137.19 lh, a tad below year-ago’s 137.26 lh. The season’s normal area (five-year average) is 146.14 lh whereas last year the acreage reached 167.38 lh. There is still time to cover another 30 lh, unless farmers shift to other crops, officials said. The acreage of gram continued to maintain its lead over year-ago period in current week as well by registering 1.4 per cent increase at 97.99 lh. Last year, the total area under gram was about 112 lh.
Area under masur is up 5.5 per cent 15.73 lh while barley is higher by 1.2 per cent at 6.14 lh, the data show.