Rabi acreage declines

Sowing of all major rabi crops such as wheat, oilseeds and pulses, is lagging year-on-year so far this season, latest official data shows.

Wheat has been sown over 27.56 million hectares, nearly 1.8 per cent down than 28.06 million a year ago.

However, wheat sowing is higher than government's target of 27 million hectares.

Oilseed acreage is down 9 per cent from the year ago period, while sowing of pulses is lagging around 5 per cent from a year ago, the data showed. 
 

Crop In mn hectare	Normal area	Area covered		Y-o-Y % change
		2007	2006
Wheat	26.19	27.567	28.063	-1.80
Rice	3.76	1.984	2.006	-1.00
Maize	0.58	1.035	1.017	1.70
Barley	0.65	0.757	0.775	2.30
Total coarse cereal#	6.42	6.677	6.936	-3.70
Rapeseed & Mustard	5.93	5.904	6.667	-11.40
Groundnut	0.82	0.803	0.747	7.40
Total oilseeds#	9.09	8.797	9.665	-8.9
Chana	6.63	7.995	8.324	-3.9
Urad	1.05	0.789	0.756	4.3
Moong	0.95	0.554	0.565	-1.9
Total pulses#	12.26	13.16	13.81	-4.7
#Total may not tally as all crops are not included in the table

According to a ministerial group, headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, the country's wheat stocks, as well as the sowing scenario, is satisfactory.

The current cold wave in north India is good for the wheat crop this year, but may hit mustard output, Pawar had said last week.

With favourable weather conditions and high acreage, wheat production this year would definitely cross 75 million tonnes, almost the same as last year, he said.

While Pawar described current wheat stocks as comfortable for now, he said further wheat imports would depend on the pace of procurements.

The rabi acreage this season is lower than a year ago due to late sowing in Gujarat and on depleted soil moisture in Rajasthan due to less rainfall.