10-15% crop loss estimated due to rain: Haryana CM

: Around 10-15% of Haryana’s rabi crop appears to have been damaged due to unseasonal rains in March, the state’s chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar said on Wednesday, even as he stressed that the extent of loss was far lower than previously estimated.

Addressing a press conference, Khattar said authorities had inspected 1.5 million of the 1.7 million acres of farm land from which damage was reported. He added that farmers who face crop losses will be compensated in May.

Since mid-March, a series of storms tore through ripening wheat in states such as Uttar Pradesh, the largest grower, Madhya Pradesh, the second-biggest grower, Punjab and Haryana, apart from Rajasthan.

Farmers and traders reported losses in these states to rabi (winter sown) crops, especially wheat, the main winter staple, HT had reported. Wheat is sown in November and reaped in March-end. Earlier this month, the central government relaxed quality standards of wheat eligible for procurement from Punjab and Haryana, following the unseasonal rain, according to separate notifications issued by the Union food ministry.

Last month’s weather shock compounded the pressure on crops and agricultural workers, already reeling from a heatwave last march, which crimped wheat output by nearly 2% to 107 million tonne, stoking shortages and food inflation amid a global cereal crisis due to the Ukraine conflict. The shortfall plunged the Centre’s procurement of wheat to a 15-year-low at just 18 million tonne.

The chief minister said that 4.1 million metric tonne of wheat has arrived in various mandis (farm-gate markets) of the state, of which 3.2 million metric tonne has been procured.

Apart from this, 212,000 metric tonne of mustard has also been procured, said Khattar.