NEW DELHI: According to data released by India’s Ministry of Agriculture on Friday, summer-sown rice has been planted on 1.96 million hectares so far. This is a 46 percent decrease from the same time last year, mostly because the monsoon got off to a slow start.
The monsoon, on the other hand, is picking up momentum, which bodes well for the forecast. The precipitation shortfall has been reduced from 36 percent to 2 percent as a result of the summer rains, which have covered more than half of the country.
The planting process has only just begun, but according to B.V. Krishna Rao, president of the All India Rice Exporters Association, the area under rice might increase as a result of an increase in the amount of monsoon rain.
When the monsoon rains traditionally begin to fall in India, the month of June marks the beginning of the planting season for a wide variety of crops, including rice, corn, cotton, soybeans, sugarcane, and peanuts, amongst others. The sowing process typically lasts until the end of July.
Because almost half of India’s cropland is not irrigated, the monsoon rains are an extremely important component of the agricultural sector, which is responsible for the employment of nearly half of the country’s labour population.
As it receives further data from the various state governments, the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare will continue to revise and update the preliminary crop sowing numbers.
The number of plants that were planted may also be adjusted after seeing how the monsoon season, which runs from June to September, develops.
Cotton was planted on a total of 3.18 million hectares of land, which is less than the 3.73 million hectares that were planted with cotton the previous year. Cotton-growing regions in the western states of Gujarat and Maharashtra have had scant amounts of monsoon rain so far this season.
Growers only have a very small window of opportunity to finish cotton sowing, which is why the rains need to kick up in order to assist them in planting the crop.
In comparison to 1.25 million hectares at the same time in 2021, the amount of land that had soybeans planted on it was 278,000 million hectares. Soybeans are the primary summer oilseed crop.
The area that was planted with protein-rice pulses increased to 202,000 hectares, as opposed to the previous year’s total of 132,000 hectares.
Nitin Kalantri, a trader based in Maharashtra, stated that the amount of land used for growing pulses may decrease in the coming weeks because some farmers may decide to shift their focus to the more profitable crops of cotton and soybean instead.
The area planted with sugarcane remained virtually constant at 5.07 million hectares.