Summer sowing in Gujarat may decrease by 15%

Summer sowing in Gujarat may go down by about 10-15 per cent this year on account of insufficient water availability for irrigation mainly in Saurashtra and Kutch regions.

Sowing commenced in February end and compared to last year, progress has seen slow so far.

Some crops, where irrigation facility is good, though, have performed well.

According to the data shared by the Gujarat agriculture department, as on March 23, summer crops was sown on 715,600 hectares, down by nearly 17.50 per cent from last year's 866,100 hectares during the corresponding period.

Summer sowing has just reached 59 per cent this year compared to last three years' average of 1.21 million hectares. Sowing generally continues till March end or first week of April.

An agriculture department official said, "Sowing progress is slow this year as the state is facing shortage of water for irrigation in Saurashtra and Kutch because of weak monsoon. Under present conditions, overall sowing may decline by about 10-15 percent.

A clear picture, though, will emerge at the end of this month when sowing for summer crops will be over, said official.

The data suggests that the biggest gap has been seen in groundnut and sesame crops while sowing of crops like paddy, bajra, mung and udad are progressing well this year.

Groundnut has been so far sown on 41,400 hectares this year as against 76,400 hectares last year this time. Similarly, sesame has been covered on 56,500 hectares as against 114,400 hectares last year this time. Area under maize crop this year has come down to 6,200 hectares from last year's 6,700 hectares .

Agriculture department official said that, summer sowing has been dull in Amreli, Jamnagar, Rajkot, Porbandar and Kutch areas due to water scarcity.

Data showed that sowing of paddy has been good as compared to other summer crops. Paddy has been sown on 29,000 hectares this year as against 33,200 hectares. While, mung was covered on 27,500 hectares this year as against 39,200 hectares last year and udad has been sown on 2,100 hectares as against 2,000 hectares.

According to data, onion has been covered on 8,100 hectares this year while it was covered on 11,100 hectares this year last time.