Kharif sowing expands robustly on surplus rains
The total area sown under a slew of crops stood at 103.1 million hectares as on August 20, compared to 101 million hectares planted during the corresponding period of last year, which is higher by 2%
Planting of kharif or summer-sown crops has been robust on the back of a vigorous monsoon, which could boost harvests necessary to ease food prices stoked by weather shocks, latest official data show.
The total area sown under a slew of crops stood at 103.1 million hectares as on August 20, compared to 101 million hectares planted during the corresponding period of last year, which is higher by 2%. However, this is lower than the five-year average of 109.5 million hectares.
An above-average monsoon has driven sowing of key commodities, such as pulses, oilseeds, coarse cereals and paddy, whose supplies are essential to hold food prices steady. Showers have been 4% surplus in the country so far.
The monsoon is vital for Asia’s third-largest economy as nearly half of the population depends on a farm-based income and two-thirds of the net-sown area don’t have access to irrigation.
According to the Reserve Bank’s August bulletin released on Monday, a series of climate-related extreme weather and supply shocks have made high food inflation “endemic” since 2019. The bank’s monetary policies have been the “only defence” against runaway prices, the bulletin said.
The area under paddy, the main summer cereal, stood at 36.9 million hectares, up from 34.9 compared to last year. Acreage of total pulses has reached 12 million hectares so far against 11 million hectares in the previous year’s corresponding period.
India depends on imports to meet its total demand for pulses, whose prices had spiraled to double digits for several months this year due to a bad crop. In the last financial year, imports went up 84% higher year-on-year to 4.65 million tonne, the most in six years.
In value terms, the country’s spending on pulses imports rose 93% to $3.75 billion. India largely imports from Canada, Australia, Myanmar, Mozambique, Tanzania, Sudan and Malawi. This year, the government has said it would procure pulses from farmers at minimum support prices to incentivise cultivation.
Cultivators have planted coarse cereals and millets in 18.1 million hectares, against 17.6 million hectares in the previous year. Oilseeds, another key group of items, have been sown in 18.6 million hectares, the same as last year.