India's foodgrain production estimated to decline by 4.6 percent

The Indian foodgrain production is projected to decline by 4.66 percent to 252.68 million tonnes in 2014-15 due to "setbacks" in kharif and rabi seasons, the agriculture ministry said on Monday.

"Production of kharif crops during 2014-15 suffered due to bad monsoon. Unseasonal rains/hailstorm during Feb-March 2015 had significant impact on production of rabi crops. As a result of setback in kharif as well as rabi seasons, the production of most of the crops in the country has declined during 2014-15," according to the fourth advance estimates of production of major crops released by the ministry on Monday.

The foodgrain production during the previous year was 265.04 million tonnes.

The ministry's fourth Advance Estimates for 2014-15 said the total production of rice was estimated at 104.80 million tonnes which is lower by 1.85 million tonnes than last year's 106.65 million tonnes.

The ministry's release said that production of wheat was likely to be 88.94 million tonnes, a dip of 6.91 million tonnes over output of 95.85 million tonnes in the previous year.

Total production of coarse cereals is pegged at 41.75 million tonnes, a fall of 1.54 million tonnes over 2013-14. The output of cereals is expected to plunge by 2.05 million tonnes to 17.20 million tonnes.

Production of jute and mesta is estimated at 11.45 million bales which is marginally lower than the production during the last year.

Total production of oilseeds in the country is estimated at 26.68 million tonnes, which is a decline of 6.07 million tonnes over the last year.

The production of sugarcane is estimated to grow by 7.19 million tonnes to 359.33 million tonnes compared to last year.

Production of cotton is estimated to dip marginally and is estimated at 35.48 million bales.

The government releases four advance estimates in an agriculture year (July-June) and this is followed by final estimates of production of major agricultural crops.