Rabi sowing area grows but at slower pace during week ended November 18

Experts say slowdown is quite usual and depends on many factors, not just cash availability

The area covered under rabi crops grew by 80% from November 4 to November 11, while between November 11 to 18 it grew by around 65%, official data furnished by the department of agriculture showed.

Whereas in 2015, which was a drought year, the area under rabi crops during the same rose by 42.49% during the week ended November 11, while it grew by over 92% during the week ended November 18.

On the face, though, it this does point towards a slowdown in sowing pace because of acute cash crunch in rural areas and delayed harvesting of paddy, but many experts feel that the slowdown is quite normal and depends on many factors not just cash shortage.

Water availability in a particular region, temperature etc also impact sowing pace, they added.

The official data showed that the area under covered wheat till November 18, 2016 was around 7.94 million hectares, which though more than last year, but almost 20% less than the normal area covered during the same period.

"One thing that needs to be understood is that in the rabi season the seed replacement ratio for most crops is around 30%, which means that 70% of seed is already available with the farmers. And for that 30% farmers might defer his purchases. Secondly, as far as impact on fertilizer sales is concerned, its impact will also be limited as more than 35% sowing has been completed till date," eminent agriculture economist and member of NITI Aayog, Ramesh Chand, told Business Standard.

He said that whatever impact demonetisation could have is on perishable commodities like fruits and vegetables, but its retail prices aren't reflecting this so-called crisis.

Former Chairman of Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP) and chair professor in ICRIER, Ashok Gulati said that his litmus test of the impact on demonetization on agriculture sector is that supplies of essential commodities haven't dried up and their prices are also fairly stable since the last 10 days.

"In rural India many systems work on credit hence, there is not likely to be a big impact of demonetization," Gulati said.

The data meanwhile, showed that wheat has been planted in around 7.94 million hectares, which is 0.73% more than the same period last year, while area under chana was recorded at around 5.37 million hectares which was 1.98% more than the same period last year.

Mustard was sown in around 5.08 million hectares of land till November 18, which is 19.57% more than the same period last year.

In total rabi crops are usually planted in around 64 million hectares of land of which sowing has been complete in around 24 million hectares of 37.5% of the total area till Friday.