Area sown to rice surpasses last year's level

With deficit in monsoon rains coming down, total area sown to rice across the country has increased marginally to 33.51 million hectares so far in the ongoing kharif season.
Farmers had sown rice in 33.37 million hectares in the corresponding period in the same season last year, according to the latest data released by the Agriculture Ministry.
Rainfall deficiency, which stood 43 per cent in June, has come down to 18 per cent yesterday. But there has been break in monsoon rains in the last six days.
Thanks to improved rainfall, the lag in the sowing has been covered quite well and total acreage under overall kharif crops is about 93.5 million hectares as of today, which is slightly lower than 97.5 million hectares a year ago.

Pulses has been sown in 9.26 million hectares so far this season, marginally down from 9.93 million hectares in the year-ago period. Among pulses, area under urad has exceeded last year's level.
But the area planted to coarse cereals is sharply lower at 16.48 million hectares from 18.9 million hectares in the review period. Bajra acreage has not improved much.

Similarly, the area sown to oilseeds is lagging behind last year's level. Total area sown so far is 16.8 million hectares, while it stood at 18.3 million hectares in the same period last season.
In case of cash crops, cotton sowing has picked up with total coverage increasing to 11.88 million hectares as of today from 11.13 million hectares in the same period last season.

However, sugarcane acreage is down at 4.7 million hectares from 5 million hectares in the review period.
Sowing in the kharif (summer) season begins with the onset of southwest monsoon from June, while the harvesting from October onwards.
In the kharif season of 2013-14, the country had harvested 129.24 million tonnes of foodgrains.