India: Rabi sowing tad below last year’s level

With just a few weeks left for the season to be over, sowing of rabi or winter crops such as wheat, pulses, oilseeds and coarse cereals have been a tad below last year’s level so far as areas under oilseeds have declined. The total area covered under rabi crops has been 59.08 million hectare (Mha), as 93% of the sowing is complete, according to data from the agriculture ministry released on Tuesday.

“Sowing windows is still available for all crops and it is expected to achieve normal area (63.53 Mha),” according to an official note. Officials said the sowing activities would continue till the middle of January and harvesting of crops would commence in last week of March.

Wheat, the main rabi crop, has been sown in 31.22 million hectare (Mha), an increase of 2.5% over last year. Sowing of wheat with late sown varieties will continue for the next couple of weeks.

The area covered under pulses — gram, masoor and urad — has declined marginally to 12.56 Mha on year and is likely to surpass the normal sown area of 14.04 Mha due to high remunerative prices received by the farmers last year.

Area under chana, which has 50% share in pulses output, is up 2% at 8.6 Mha while masoor sowing has declined on year.

The oilseeds acreage so far has declined over 5.5% to 9.52 Mha on year. In case of mustard, the key oilseed crop, sowing is down by 5.5% to 8.85 Mha as of December end compared with the normal sown area of 8.69 Mha.  Officials said the farmers have started to shifted more remunerative crops including coarse cereals

The above-normal monsoon has helped fill up major water reservoirs and recharged groundwater tables, improving soil moisture, and the possibility of longer winter months due to the developing La Nina conditions would help overall crop prospects, an official said.

La Nina conditions may neutralise the impact of late sowing in some cases on crop yields, the official added. The India Meteorological Department has stated “the probability forecast indicates the highest probability of La Niña conditions during the NDJ and DJF (November-February) seasons,”.

In October, agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had set a target of a record foodgrain production of 341.55 million tonne (MT) in the 2024-25 crop year (July-June), an increase of around 3% from the 2023-24 crop year.

While the rabi season is projected to contribute 164.55 MT to the total foodgrain production in the 2024-25 crop year, kharif and summer seasons are estimated to contribute 161.37 MT and 2.25 MT, respectively.

The wheat production is projected at a record 115 MT in 2024-25. Chana output is estimated at an all-time high of 13.65 MT for the current crop year, against a sharp fall of 10% to 11.03 MT in 2023-24 due to the adverse weather conditions.

Tags: wheat, pulses, output, gram, chana, rabi, urad, masoor, coarse cereals, oilseeds, Production