Kharif sowing rises for first time after trailing for weeks

Sowing areas for all crops in the current autumn season have crossed the halfway mark, reaching 592.11 lakh hectares (lh) as of Friday, compared to 591.30 lakh hectares (lh) in the corresponding period last year. Lagging behind last year’s level, the sown area increased for the first time this season mainly due to the improvement observed in the areas under soybean, mung, cotton and bagra in the last 2-3 weeks while the gap in the rice areas also decreased.

Lack of rain

“Badhi remains a concern because public areas have been lagging behind as rains have been slowing in Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, and some of the major grain producers. There could be some collapse in the region this year as farmers in many places are waiting for the rains and have not even started. in agriculture, while in some other enclaves although the nursery is ready, they have not yet gone into cultivation.”

The government has set the target for rice production at 112 million tons this season, compared to 111.04 metric tons in the fall of 2021-2022.

Sowing in rice areas has improved slightly – the decline was 24 percent up to July 8, but it is now 17 percent at 128.50 liters as of July 15 compared to 155.53 liters in the corresponding period in 2021. The rice area was 174.44 liters. July 15, 2020.

While the region in Uttar Pradesh was higher until last week, it has now decreased by more than 8 litres. Among other major rice growers, Chhattisgarh reports a deficit of over 3 lh, Odisha nearly 4 lh, Madhya Pradesh nearly 3 lh, and Telangana and Punjab about 2 lh, each. Bihar and Jharkhand together have a deficit of 4.6 liters so far.

Although the country as a whole received 14 percent above normal rainfall between June 1 and July 15, up to 17 percent of the country is dry so far.

Uttar Pradesh has seen 65 percent less rain than normal so far and almost all districts have recorded little rain. Of the 42 districts in eastern UP, only Varanasi gets normal rainfall. Similarly in western UP, out of 33 districts only Agra, Hapur and Firozabad have received normal rainfall so far.

Sowing in West Bengal, the largest rice grower, is expected to increase in the next month, depending on rainfall as major growing areas like Birbhum, Bardhaman, Bankura, East Midnipur and Mersidabad suffer from a lack of rainfall. The state has received 24 percent less rainfall, so far, while Khareef’s total at 9.42 liters per hour is down 10 liters per hour from last year.

acre pulses

Total areas under all pulses increased by 9 percent to 72.66 liters from 66.69 liters as the moon jumped 27.4 percent to 20.19 liters and 15.2 percent to 18.06 liters. But the districts of Aharhar decreased by 18.3 percent to 25.81 liters due to the decrease in Telangana, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

Cotton came in at 102.8 liters as of Friday, up 6.4 percent from 96.58 liters in the same period last year. Gujarat and Maharashtra reported higher areas while farmers farmed less in Telangana, according to the weekly update from the Ministry of Agriculture on Friday.

Oilseed sowing also increased to 134.04 liters from 124.83 litres, up 7.4 percent as soybeans were reported to have increased by 10 percent to 99.35 litres, but peanuts decreased by 2.8 percent to 28.89 litres. Officials said that with heavy rains reported in Gujarat, a major grower of groundnuts, farmers will start increasing sowing once the water is removed from the fields, highlighting an almost five times increase (in groundnuts) in the past week in the state.

Coarse grain area increased by 7.9 percent to 93.91 liters from 87.06 liters. While bajra rose by 65 percent to 34.46 litres, corn sowing fell 12 percent to 49.90 litres.

“Last week was good for planting as there was an increase of about 30 per cent while the total area planted is now 55 per cent of the normal fall planting of 1,085 litres. We expect the area to exceed 80 per cent of the normal area in the next two weeks,” said one of the officials. However, he said states should be vigilant about the impact of climate change as heavy rains for a few days may lead to floods as seen in Gujarat.