Pulses sowing highest in five years

The sowing of kharif crops maintained its impressive pace during the week that ended on Friday, led by pulses.

The total area under pulses was recorded at 12.11 million hectares, the highest in the corresponding period of the previous five years and almost 35 per cent more than the area covered during the corresponding period last year.

In pulses, arhar has been the top gainer with area under the crop around 55 per cent more than the year-ago period.

Arhar prices had touched around Rs 200 a kg last year and farmers seem to have been responding to this.

Officials said some area under guar in Rajasthan, soybean in Madhya Pradesh, cotton and castor in Gujarat and additional area in Karnataka and Telangana seem to have shifted towards pulses this year. Data released by the Department of Agriculture showed that till this week all kharif crops have been sown on around 88.52 million hectares, which is 5.19 per cent more than the year-ago period. In the past five years, kharif crops were sown on 106.25 million hectares.
 

With sowing complete in almost 83 per cent of the normal area and no sign of any big let up in southwest monsoon, there is a big possibility that overall acreage this year might reach new highs.

Rice, the biggest foodgrain grown during the kharif season, has been so far planted on around 28.19 million hectares, around 2.12 per cent more than the year-ago period last year.

Coarse cereals have been sown on around 16.37 million hectares, 3.22 per cent more than the year-ago period last year. Cotton has been sown on around 9.64 million hectares, which is around 8 per cent less than the same corresponding period last year.

With the southwest monsoon showing some signs of revival in the past few days over India's biggest cotton growing region of Gujarat, there is possibility that the gap might be bridged in the coming weeks.

Latest weekly update from the IMD released on Thursday showed that southwest monsoon in Gujarat since the start of this season in June 1 has been 32-46 per cent below normal, while in Kerala and Punjab it was around 27 per cent and 22 per cent deficient.