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Sowing of kharif crops continued at a steady pace during the week ended July 28, with paddy acreage reaching 23.75 million hectares, an increase of 1.84 per cent compared to the same period last year.
Overall, till July 28, sowing of all kharif crops covered around 83.03 million hectares, which is 0.16 per cent less compared to the last year. So far, total kharif sowing is over in around 76 per cent of the normal area.
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However, With the southwest monsoon poised to go for an extended break after the first week of August due to the impact of El Nino, the final output of many already planted crops could be affected, particularly in Bihar, Jharkhand and eastern Uttar Pradesh and southern states of Karnataka, and Maharashtra.
“All models are predicting that the southwest monsoon will go for a break over most parts of the country after the second week of August, and rains will be limited to foothills of Himalayas and parts of southern India. While this might be good for areas in North India where excess rains in July have caused floods, it could be problematic for eastern India where the monsoon so far has been patchy,” said Madhavan Rajeevan, a former secretary of ministry of earth sciences and a well-known authority on Indian monsoon told Business Standard.
According to him, if the monsoon break extends beyond two weeks, it could start showing a negative impact on standing crops.
In case of pulses, the acreage of arhar till July 28 is down by 16 per cent compared to same period last year, urad by 14 per cent, and moong by 7.07 per cent despite a pick-up in rains in the main growing regions like Karnataka and Maharashtra, which should also be cause for concern as the ideal sowing window is fast disappearing.
A drop in the production of the three crucial pulses will further increase the prices and increase the reliance on imports.
In case of paddy, the crop in the critical eastern Indian regions of Bihar, Jharkhand, and eastern Uttar Pradesh is precarious, farmers said, adding that unless it rains heavily in the next few weeks, it would be difficult to salvage the harvest.
The good news is that rains are poised to revive in East India from tomorrow.
Till now, that is between June 1 to July 28, Bihar has received 49 per cent less rainfall than average, Jharkhand 48 per cent, eastern UP 35 per cent less, and Gangetic West Bengal has recorded 40 per cent less than normal rainfall.
Of the 38 districts in Bihar, cumulative rainfall is deficient in almost 25 of them (around 66 per cent). Of the 24 districts in Jharkhand, 16 (around 67 per cent) recorded deficient cumulative rainfall.
In UP, of the 75 districts, rainfall is deficient in 33 of them, which makes around 44 per cent and most of them are in the eastern part of the state, bordering Bihar.
Of the 19 districts in West Bengal, rainfall is deficient in almost 14 of them.
This is perhaps the reason that the Centre has taken a slew of measures to bring down rice inflation, including imposing a ban on non-basmati rice exports and stopping sale of rice for ethanol production.
