Kharif sowing up 6%, pulses up by 33%

Good monsoon rains provide boost; with exception of cotton & sugarcane, cultivation of all key crops exceeds last year’s figures

EXCESS or normal monsoon rains across 93% of the country so far has given a big boost to sowing of kharif crops, reports Sandip Das in New Delhi. Ministry of agriculture data released on Friday showed kharif sowing so far has surpassed last year’s sowing by over 6% so far. Barring cotton and sugarcane, all the key kharif crops cultivation have exceeded last year’s figures, especially pulses, which are up 33% over the previous year.

EXCESS or normal monsoon rains received across 93% of the regions in the country so far has given a big boost to the sowing of kharif crops such as paddy, pulses, oilseeds, coarse grains, sugarcane and cotton.

According to ministry of agriculture data released on Friday, kharif sowing so far has surpassed last year’s sowing by more than 6%. With the exception of sowing of cotton and sugarcane, which are down by more than 8%, cultivation of all the key kharif crops has exceeded last year’s figures.

Pulseshavebeensowninan area 33% broader compared with the previous year. Kharif pulses are usually sown in 108 lakh hectares, while this year, mainly because of adequate monsoon rains and a spike in prices in the last couple of months, has seen in farmers sowing pulses in 130 lakh hectares so far.

As retail prices of arhar, or tur, dal rose sharply, forcing the Centre to import pulses for thebufferstock,sowinghasincreased by more than 51% to 48.87 lakh hectares so far, against only 32.31 lakh hectares sown in the same period the previous year. Arhar dal is usually sown in 40 lakh hectares in the kharif season.

Similarly, the sowing of urad dal has risen by more than27%to31.57lakhhectares compared with last year, while it is usually sown in 24 lakh hectares.

An agriculture ministry official said due to reports of whitefly pest attacks in some partsof Punjab,cottonsowing has declined compared with last year. Kharif crops have been sown in more than 954 lakhhectaressofar.According toanagricultureministryofficial, kharif crops are usually sown in 1,062 lakh hectares across the country. “The kharif sowing is expected to continue till the end of this month,” an agriculture ministry official told FE.

The agriculture ministry hassetthecountry’sgrainproductiontargetat270.10million tonne (mt) for the 2016-17 crop year(July-June),up6.7%from the actual grain production of 253.23 mt in 2015-16. Meanwhile, Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said that the southwest monsoon has been vigorous over Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Haryana, Punjab and east Rajasthan in the last 24 hours.

According to IMD data, the quantum of rainfall during June 1-August 12 has been more than 577 mm, which is 3% more than the benchmark Long Period Average (LPA). Till now, 29% of the country’s areas have got ‘excess’ rainfall, while 64% have received ‘normal’ rainfall. Only 7% of the areas have received deficient rainfall. With the exception of Kerala, Assam and Meghalaya, where rainfall has been ‘deficient’, most of the regions across the country has so far received ‘normal’ or ‘excess’ monsoon rainfall in the country.