Kharif crops’ sowing area 1.5% lower than last year’s: New data
Most farm operations for the season are over. The June-September monsoon, which waters nearly 50% of the sown area, was highly uneven this year, damaging crops. Several states witnessed flooding, while rice belts in northern and eastern India were mostly dry.
India’s output from the kharif cropping season, which accounts for nearly half of the country’s annual food supply, is likely to be average, with the area sown countrywide lagging last year’s levels by around 1.5%, official data as on September 2 showed.
Most farm operations for the season are over. The June-September monsoon, which waters nearly 50% of the sown area, was highly uneven this year, damaging crops. Several states witnessed flooding, while rice belts in northern and eastern India were mostly dry.
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The area under rice, the summer staple, was 5.6% lower than last year’s level, a narrower deficit than in some previous weeks, the data showed.
Yet, compared to the average paddy acreage of the past five years (39.7 million hectares), farmers were able to plant 3% less area at 38.3 million hectares. Last year, they had sown paddy in 40 million hectares.
The area under pulses, whose domestic demand is partly met with imports, was also down 4% at 12.9 million hectares, according to the farm ministry’s data. Analysts foresee a fall in rice output, anywhere between 5%-10%.
Lower output from extreme weather comes amid a global food crisis sparked by the Ukraine war and lingering supply-chain disruptions. In March, record-breaking heat trimmed India’s wheat production by an estimated 2.5% to 106 million tonne, plunging federally held stocks to a 14-year low.
Still, the food ministry expects rice output to be normal, going by its target for procurement of the staple, which refers to the government’s purchases of grains for state-held stockpiles.
Despite the lower acreage, the Centre has aims to purchase 51.8 million tonne of summer rice, higher than last year’s actual purchase of 50 million tonne, an official release last week said.
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The Centre had a rice stockpile of 41 million tonne as on August 1, far higher than a mandatory reserve of 13.5 million tonne needed on July 1. “The government will need to release these stocks in the open market to control price rise in basic staples,” said Siraj Hussain, a former Union agriculture secretary.
The deficit in the rice area has come down from between 10% and 6% last month. This is mainly because farmers in rice-producing states, with little time left to spare, switched to alternative paddy varieties that mature in a shorter period. These include the states of Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, the largest rice-producing states, where rains were scanty.
