Rabi acreage 6% more than last year

From here, all eyes on weather, mainly during harvest time

Rabi, or winter crops, have been planted on around 64.5 million hectares of land till February 3, according to the Centre's final sowing report released on Friday. This is almost 21 per cent more than the normal area, 6 per cent more than in 2015-16 and just marginally more than the previous normal monsoon year of 2013.

Both 2014 and 2015 were drought years. The area covered under rabi crops in 2013 — which was the last normal monsoon year — was 64.4 million hectares, 0.15 per cent less than this year's acreage.

This year, according to the report, wheat has been sown on around 31.78 million hectares — 2.1 million hectares more than 2015-16 but 0.25 million hectares more than last normal monsoon year of 2013. The acreage is 1.46 million hectares more than the average acreage covered in last five years.

"Wheat and pulses have registered record sowing in terms of area," an official statement released on Friday said.

In pulses, the total area covered till Friday was around 15.97 million hectares, which was 1.60 million hectares more than last year and 1.20 million hectares more than the average area covered under the same period in last five years.

However, compared to the last normal monsoon year of 2013, the area covered under pulses is 0.16 million hectares more.

The rabi rice acreage was estimated at 3.39 per cent less this year than the same period last year. However, rabi is not the main season for rice cultivation and sowing for this crop continues for a longer time.

The agriculture ministry data showed that coarse cereals have been planted on around 5.76 million hectares, which was 3.44 per cent less than the same period last year.

Good rain over parts of North and Central India in the last few days has improved the condition for the rabi crop, which till some time ago was under stress because of warmer-than-usual winters.

The weather is expected to remain benign for the next few days as well with another round of rains forecast over the plains of North India over the weekend till Monday.

All eyes would now be on the weather in the remaining part of February and also thereafter, particularly at the time when the actual harvest takes place.

The Centre all along said that demonetisation was not having any impact on sowing of rabi crops and the steps taken to augment seed supplies and in rural areas was providing the necessary succour.