As sowing of kharif crops is largely completed, overall sown area is marginally above last year. The impact on the transplanted crops yield because of surplus monsoon rainfall is likely to be marginal, on a pan-India basis.
Agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Friday that overall, the impact of rains has been around 1-2% of total sown crops in the country.
However, he added that there has been “extensive damage” to crops in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
“Sowing has been encouraging and the overall graph of productivity of all the kharif crops will rise,” Chouhan told FE.
Traders and experts feel that rainfall during the next couple of weeks would be crucial for kharif crops prospects.
At 109.23 million hectare (MH), kharif sowing is 99.7% of the normal sown area till a week ago. This is up 2.15% on year, according to the data by the agriculture ministry.
In case of paddy, oilseeds and coarse cereals, sowing this season has already crossed the last five year’s average.
Pushan Sharma, Director, Crisil said over rainfall in September will be crucial for kharif crops yield. “Demand for onion and potato is likely to peak as rabi stocks would deplete fast,”.
The overall rainfall this season till Friday has been 8.3% above the benchmark long period average or ‘above normal’ range. India Meteorological Department (IM) has stated that 75% of the 729 odd districts in the country have received rainfall in the range of surplus to normal range.
In the southern peninsula and central India, monsoon rainfall has been 23.4% and 18.9% more than the benchmark so far respectively. At 40.95 million hectare (MH), paddy sowing has crossed last five year’s average at 40.15 MH.
“While rains have impacted pulses crop in some pockets, but overall increase in sowing is expected to boost output,” Nitin Kalantri, managing director, Kalantry Food Products, a Latur, Maharashtra-based pulses processor, stated. Trades sources said that there has been some impact on urad output because of surplus rains especially in central and southern regions.
Stating that as sowing is almost complete, harvesting of crops will be critical, Sonal Badhan, Economist, Bank of Baroda said “excess or large excess of rainfall or deficient rainfall can be damaging for sown crop,”.
The agriculture ministry has set a target of record food grains production of 340 million tonne (MT) during the 2024-25 crop year (July-June), 3.4% higher than 328.8 MT estimated during the previous crop year.