Sowing in the current rabi season is nearly complete with an area of about 15 lakh hectares (lh) covered in the past week under all crops taking the total acreage to 679.34 lh as on Friday, up by one per cent from 671.98 lh a year ago. While wheat and rice acreage is down, area under mustard, chana and maize have been improved from last year.

There is no impact of the third wave of Covid on the progress of rabi sowing in the country, an official of Union Agriculture Ministry said after the release of weekly update.

While in absolute terms, wheat area has declined by 4.31 lh, it is not significant enough to have any impact on overall production, many experts have said. A small increase in productivity may help the country to match last year’s output of 109.52 million tonnes (mt) even from lower area as the weather is very conducive for the crop, so far. Total area under wheat has reached 340.82 lh, down by 1.3 per cent from 345.14 lh in the year-ago period.

Rabi rice acreage has also declined 21.9 per cent to 23.61 lh as of January 21 from 30.21 lh in the year-ago period. Though there is still time for the crop to catch up as about 10 lh was covered in February last year, it is unlikely to reach the target of 42.2 lh. Rabi season’s crop has nearly 15 per cent share in country’s total rice output, estimated at record 122.27 mt in 2020-21.

“Overall trend of sowing is very good and most of the States are expected to achieve the targeted area of total pulses within this month. Sowing/transplanting of rabi rice will be carried out in Southern and Eastern regions till mid-February. Extremely good water reservoir position and availability of soil moisture condition in the country indicates good prospect for summer crops, too,” the ministry official said.

Oilseeds

Total area under oilseeds has increased 22.1 per cent to reach 101.16 lh from 82.86 lh an year ago. The main crop, mustard, is up by 24.5 per cent at 91 lh from 73.10 lh year-ago and area under groundnut too has increased to 4.65 lh from 4.6 lh.

Overall winter-grown pulses acreage reached at 164.35 lh, which is one per cent higher from year-ago’s 162.88 lh. Last year the acreage reached 167.38 lh at the end of the sowing. Area under gram is up by 3.9 per cent at 113.3 lh from 109.05 lh an year ago period and has also exceeded last year’s total of 112 lh. Masur acreage too is up 3.2 per cent at 17.42 lh from 16.87 lh. But all other pulses like urad, kulthi and field peas have reported fall in acreage.

The maize sowing is up 9.3 per cent at 17.83 lh from 16.31 lh an year ago. Barley is a tad lower at at 6.78 lh from 6.87 lh an year ago, the data shows. Overall coarse cereals have dropped 2.95 per cent at 49.4 lh against 50.90 lh an year ago.

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