Farmers wait for monsoon in rain-fed areas to begin sowing

Farmers have begun sowing kharif crops like paddy in irrigated areas and the activity is expected to pick up in rain-fed areas in the coming days as monsoon progresses.
As per the Union Agriculture Ministry data, sowing so far in this kharif season is higher in case of paddy and oilseeds, but the area is lagging behind in pulses, coarse cereals, cotton and jute.
"Sowing has started mainly in irrigated areas so far. The planting in rain-fed areas will begin as monsoon progresses," Agriculture Commissioner incharge J S Sandhu said.
Sowing time is the most crucial factor for higher crop productivity in rain-fed area. Although sowing begins from June but there is still time as monsoon rains have not yet fully spread and distributed across the country, he said.

Agriculture is heavily dependent on the monsoon as only 40 per cent of the cultivable area is under irrigation.
In view of poor monsoon forecast, Sandhu--who is also Deputy Director General at Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) -- said that the state governments have prepared contingency plans to reduce the impact of erratic rains on kharif crops.

The contingency plans have been kept ready for 580 districts as of now and similar plans are being prepared for even hilly states, he added.
As per the Met Department, there was 18 per cent deficient rains in central India during June 1-12, while 6 per cent deficit in north-west India.

"Conditions are favourable for further advance of monsoon into some more parts of north Arabian sea, south Gujarat, remaining parts of Maharashtra, coastal Andhra Pradesh, northwest Bay of Bengal, West Bengal, some more parts of Chhattisgarh and Odisha and some parts of south Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar during next 3-4 days," it said in a statement.
As per the government data, area sown to rice was higher at 4.71 lakh hectare till last week as against 4.52 lakh hectare in the same period last year.
The area under pulses was lower at 2.46 lakh hectare as against 2.75 lakh hectare, while the coverage under coarse cereals too was lower at 3.82 lakh hectare as against 6.09 lakh hectare in the said period.

The sowing area under cotton, sugarcane and jute also remained lower in the said period.
Area under oilseeds, however, was higher at 1.21 lakh hectare till last week as against 0.94 lakh hectare in the year-ago period, the data showed.
Sowing of kharif crops normally begins with the onset of southwest monsoon in June, while the harvesting starts from October.