Excess or normal monsoon rains received in close to 90% of the regions so far have given boost to 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 close to 6%. With the exception of sowing of cotton and sugarcane which are down by 8%, all the key kharif crops cultivation has exceeded last year’s figure.
The kharif crops sowing, which usually begins after the onset of monsoon in early June, has crossed 992 lakh hectares so far against 938 lakh hectares sown a year ago period. According to a ministry official, kharif crops are usually sown in 1,062 lakh hectares across the country. “The kharif sowing is expected to continue for another fortnight or so,” the official told FE.
The pulses have been sown in 35% more areas compared to the previous year. Kharif pulses usually are sown in 108 lakh hectares while this year mainly because of adequate monsoon rains and spike in prices in the last few months has resulted in farmers sowing pulses in 136 lakh hectares so far.
As the retail prices of arhar or tur dal rose sharply forcing the Centre to import pulses for buffer stock, sowing has increased by more than 49% to 49.89 lakh hectares so far against only 33.49 lakh hectares sown in the same period previous year.
Arhar dal is usually sown in 40 lakh hectares in the kharif season. Similarly, the sowing of urad dal has rose by more than 27% to 32.40 lakh hectares compared to last year while it is usually sown in 24 lakh hectares.
Due to reports of whitefly pest attacks in some parts of Punjab, the cotton sowing has declined compared to last year.
The agriculture ministry has set the country’s grain production target at 270.10 million tonne (MT) for the 2016-17 crop year (July-June), up 6.7% from the actual grain production of 253.23 MT in 2015-16.
Meanwhile, Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said, “Heavy rain is likely over east Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram & Tripura, coastal Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.”
As per the IMD data, the quantum of rainfall during June 1-August 19 has been more than 618 mm which is 1% less than the benchmark – Long Period Average (LPA). Till now, 20% of the country’s area has got ‘excess’ rainfall while 69% have received ‘normal’ rainfall.
Only 11% of the areas have received deficient rainfall. With the exception of Punjab, Gujarat region and coastal Karnataka where rainfall has been ‘deficient’, most of the regions across the country have so far received ‘normal’ or ‘excess’ monsoon rainfall.
Earlier in the month, IMD stated that rainfall during second half (August-September) would be ‘above normal’ at 107% of LPA, with a model error of ± 8%.The Met department also reiterated its June’s forecast by stating that overall rainfall during monsoon season (June-September) will be 106% of LPA following two successive years of ‘deficient’ monsoon (2014 & 2015).
While June rainfall constitute 18% of the total rainfall received during monsoon period (June-September), the showers during July (33%) and August (29%) are critical for kharif sowing. IMD puts monsoon rains under four categories — <90% of benchmark (deficient), 90-96% (below normal), 96-104% (normal) and 104-110% (above normal) and 110%> (excess).