India summer crop sowing edges up; rice area expands 2.3 percent

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian farmers have planted summer-sown crops on 104.17 million hectares as of Sept. 7, up 0.2 percent from a year earlier, government data showed.

Cotton sowing was down 2.4 percent, while rice planting rose 2.3 percent.

Monsoon rainfall was 7 percent lower than normal as of Sept. 7, but in some states such as Manipur the rainfall deficit was as high as 53 percent, data compiled by the state-run India Meteorological Department (IMD) showed.

India's monsoon rains, a crucial element for the country's farm output, are likely to be below average in 2018, after the country experienced lighter than usual rainfall during the first half of the season.

The following figures are provisional and are in million hectares. Some numbers have been rounded, and the table does not include all crops.

Crops 2018/19 2017/18

Rice 38.193 37.336

Pulses 13.441 13.745

Pigeon peas 4.520 4.511

Cereals 17.431 18.164

Corn 7.861 7.870

Oilseeds 17.395 16.920

Soybean 11.192 10.526

Sugar cane 5.194 4.986

Cotton 11.810 12.098

Total 104.165 103.957

(Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav; editing by David Evans)