Rains take a break but sowing in full swing

India’s southwest monsoon showed some signs of abating and the rains during the week ended July 20 was seven per cent less than normal, but there was no break in sowing as farmers rushed to take advantage of the available soil moisture.

The showers are expected to return over central and northern parts of India in the next few days, boosting kharif sowing which has already touched 70 million hectares, 3.28 per cent more than the same period last year.

The highest gains have been recorded in pulses, where the sowing area has increased 39 per cent to 9.01 million hectare so far in the 2016-17 kharif season with Karnataka on top.

Pulses area has increased 87 per cent in Karnataka to 1.4 million hectare as of Friday, from 0.75 million hectare compared to the year-ago period, according to agriculture ministry data.

There has been a 30-35 per cent jump in pulses area even in Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

Sowing of pulses and other kharif crops begin with the onset of southwest monsoon from June and harvesting starts from October. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast better-than-normal rains for the four-month season ending September.

“In view of better progress of sowing of kharif crops, if rainfall conditions during the remaining period of the current monsoon season continues to be favourable according to IMD’s forecast, this year’s production scenarios of kharif crops should be better than the last year,” Minister of State for Agriculture Sudarshan Bhagat said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

According to the ministry’s data, all kharif crops including pulses and paddy have been covered in 65 per cent of the total farm area of 106.2 million hectares. Out of which, paddy - the main kharif crop - has been sown in 18.30 million hectares so far this season, which is marginally higher from 18.23 million hectares in the year-go period.

Area of coarse cereals has also increased slightly by 3.46 per cent to 13.1 million hectares from 12.62 million hectares, while the area under oilseeds has gone up by four per cent to 14.96 million hectares from 14.3 million hectares in the said period.

The overall good rains have so far been around one per cent above normal with the highest showers recording over central and north West India.