With more than 84% of sowing completed, the area under kharif crops was marginally above the last year’s level on Friday.
According to the agriculture ministry data, 91 million hectare (MH) has so far been covered under the kharif crops, an increase of 0.41% on year. A week ago, sowing was 0.16% below the last year’s level. A fortnight ago, sowing was 1.2% up YoY.
Ministry officials said the total kharif sown area till now is around 84% of the normal kharif sown area of 109 MH.
“Sowing activities are expected to be completed by the end of the month as majority parts of the country have received adequate rainfall,” an agriculture ministry official told FE.
However, after a surplus July, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted ‘below-normal’ rainfall for August, which is likely to impact the yield of crops.
Thanks to heavy downpour over northwest, central and southern parts of the country in the last few weeks, paddy transplanting is currently up 3.38% YoY. Three weeks back, the gap was 9.8%.
So far, rice has been transplanted on 28.3 MH, 71% of the normal sown area. Sowing will be completed in the next two weeks and harvesting of crops will commence from October 1.
At present, only Jharkhand (- 36%) and Bihar (-40%) and West Bengal (-16) are reporting deficient rainfall. Rest of the key paddy producing states – Telangana, Chhattistgarh and Odisha – have received adequate rainfall in the last fortnight.
Sowing of pulses – tur, urad and moong – is lagging 9.31% on year so far while the area under oilseeds including groundnut, soybean and sunflower is up 4.47% on year. While sugarcane planting has risen 2.54% on year, the area under coarse cereals such as maize, bajra and ragi is up 1%.
According to the IMD, overall monsoon rains were “above normal” being 5% above the benchmark – long period average (LPA) – till Friday. The met department has said 68% of 717 districts in the country have so far received normal or excess rainfall. The remaining 225 districts have received deficient and scanty rainfall.
After being deficient since the last month, rainfall in the southern peninsula is now just 1% below the LPA.
Northwest and central India regions have received 25% and 16% more rainfall, respectively, than benchmark.
In June, the government had hiked the minimum support prices (MSP) of key kharif crops for 2023-24 season (July-June) by 6-10.4%, the highest increase since 2018-19. The MSP for paddy has been fixed at Rs 2,183/quintal, up 7% on year.
India’s foodgrain production rose 5% YoY to a new record of 330.5 MT for the 2022-23 crop year, according to the agriculture ministry.