New Delhi: The area sown under food grains, coarse cereals and oilseeds, under summer crop, is 71.88 lakh hectares, as on Friday, compared to 68.84 lakh hectares previous year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare said.
This is fairly above the average of the last five years at 56.28 lakh Ha. Rice, maize, groundnut, and sunflower have shown slight decrease in area while for the rest, it is increasing.
“There has been excessive heat in March and April in northwest and central India and excessive rainfall in the northeast around the same time. This has had an impact on the sowing at different places,” an official said.
The area coverage for rice is about 29.71 lakh Ha compared to 30.83 lakh Ha during the corresponding period of last year. The area has been reported mainly from West Bengal (9.27 lakh Ha), Telangana (6.75 lakh Ha), Karnataka (3 lakh Ha), Odisha (2.03 lakh Ha), Assam (1.96 lakh Ha), Tamil Nadu (1.35 lakh Ha), Maharashtra (1.25 lakh Ha), Chhattisgarh (1.01 lakh Ha), Gujarat (0.74 lakh Ha), Andhra Pradesh (0.72 lakh Ha), Kerala (0.59 lakh Ha), Bihar (0.26 lakh Ha), and Jharkhand (0.15 lakh Ha).
In case of pulses, the area is about 20.38 lakh Ha compared to 17.21 lakh Ha during the corresponding period of last year; mainly from Madhya Pradesh (8.85 lakh Ha), Odisha (2.61 lakh Ha), Bihar (2.06 lakh Ha), Tamil Nadu (1.95 lakh Ha), Uttar Pradesh (1.53 lakh Ha), Gujarat (0.96 lakh Ha), West Bengal (0.83 lakh Ha), Andhra Pradesh (0.35 lakh Ha), Chhattisgarh (0.35 lakh Ha), Maharashtra (0.25 lakh Ha), Assam (0.20 lakh Ha),A Karnataka (0.11 lakh Ha), Jharkhand (0.10 lakh Ha), Rajasthan (0.09 lakh Ha), Punjab (0.07 lakh Ha), Uttarakhand (0.05 lakh Ha), and Jammu & Kashmir (0.01 lakh Ha).
Nutri-cum-coarse cereals covered an area of 10.82 lakh Ha area compared to 10.26 lakh Ha during the corresponding period of last year – mainly from Gujarat (2.86 lakh Ha), Uttar Pradesh (2.68 lakh Ha), West Bengal (1.55 lakh Ha), Maharashtra (0.74 lakh Ha), Bihar (0.67 lakh Ha), Karnataka (0.65 lakh Ha),A Chhattisgarh (0.52 lakh Ha), Punjab (0.39 lakh Ha), Tamil Nadu (0.29 lakh Ha), Rajasthan (0.25 lakh Ha), Madhya Pradesh (0.12 lakh Ha), Odisha (0.09 lakh Ha), and Jharkhand (0.01 lakh Ha).
For oilseeds, it is about 10.98 lakh Ha compared to 10.54 lakh Ha during the corresponding period of last year from West Bengal (3.19 lakh Ha), Gujarat (1.69 lakh Ha), Maharashtra (1.56 lakh Ha), Uttar Pradesh (1.16 lakh Ha), Karnataka (1.08 lakh Ha), Tamil Nadu (0.57 lakh Ha), Telangana (0.53 lakh Ha), Odisha (0.44 lakh Ha), Chhattisgarh (0.33 lakh Ha), Andhra Pradesh (0.29 lakh Ha), Haryana (0.08 lakh Ha), Madhya Pradesh (0.04 lakh Ha), Assam (0.03 lakh Ha) and Bihar (0.02 lakh Ha), official data showed.
(IANS)
