Rabi crop's sowing advanced by a month

Farmers have advanced the rabi crop’s sowing by about a month to take advantage of the high moisture left in the fields due to late rainfall this monsoon and the early onset of winter fog. While the sowing of wheat, some rabi oilseeds and pulses has begun in north Karnataka, east and south Rajasthan and eastern Madhya Pradesh, farmers are expediting harvesting of short-duration paddy in Punjab to vacate the field for wheat sowing.

Union food minister K V Thomas also recently advised farmers to commence early sowing of rabi crops. Wheat, chana, masur and rapeseed/mustard seed are grown fully in the rabi season. Also, about 13 per cent of paddy, 25 per cent of groundnut, 77 per cent of sunflower, 20 per cent of sesame and 35 per cent of urad are grown in this season.

“While short-duration crops are being harvested hastily to prepare the fields for rabi sowing, farmers have also started covering the area left unsown during the kharif season due to delay in the monsoon rainfall,” said B Venkateswarlu, director of the Hyderabad-based Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture.

Aiming for better coverage of the area under wheat, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has forecast India’s wheat production to rise by eight per cent to set a new high at 93.9 million tonnes (mt) in 2012, as compared to the previous year’s record at 86.9 mt. FAO estimated India’s total paddy output at 147.7 mt this year as compared to 156.5 mt in the previous year due to a delayed monsoon and unfavourable weather conditions.

“Paddy crop harvesting has started in Punjab as farmers want the field to vacate early to sow wheat and other rabi crops. Normally, rabi sowing begins in Punjab in December, after harvesting of the paddy crop. Wheat harvesting begins in the state in April. This season, farmers are in a hurry. They want wheat sowing to begin as early as November,” said Vimal Sethi, proprietor of the Amr-itsar–based Pooja Trading Corporation, a grain trader.

The monsoon rainfall was delayed by two months this year, pushing thereby the planting of kharif sowing crops behind schedule. As a consequence, a majority of farmers opted for short-duration crops, maturing in 45-60 days instead of the usual 90 days. Instead of the onset of normal monsoon rainfall in the second week of June every year, the showers only revived in the second week of August.

According to Vikash Gupta, Director of Superior Agro Crops, a Delhi-based grain trader, “Sowing of rabi season crops such as chana, masoor and urad has started in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana. It has started early this year.”

Planting of small rabi oilseeds has also started. But, B V Mehta, executive director of the Solvent Extractors’ Association, feels overall oilseed acreage would be higher this year due to a favourable climate and adequate moisture in the environment, with all major reservoirs being full.