Good Monsoon Heralds Good Crop Output

NEW DELHI: After providing the much-needed relief to farmers and the economy in the country, monsoon is ready to withdraw from the scene.

The good rains have kindled hopes among the farmers of a good kharif crop. According to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), the total rainfall during the season (June to September) has been 5 per cent above normal.

However, the rains have once again proved the IMD’s earlier predictions wrong. So the production projections for most crops will have to be revised.

The rainfall has consistently been above normal on most days of the monsoon season. Where the spatial distribution of rainfall is concerned, of the country’s total 36 meteorological subdivisions, only 6 (mainly in the north-west) have remained rain-deficient.

These sub-divisions are Punjab (-29 per cent), Haryana, including Delhi and Chandigarh (-34 per cent), Himachal Pradesh (-36 per cent), west Uttar Pradesh (-39 per cent), east Madhya Pradesh (-30 per cent) and Arunachal Pradesh (-20 per cent).

About 368 districts, or 72 per cent, received normal or excess rainfall and 125, or 24 per cent, received deficient rainfall till September 26.

The monsoon has already receded from almost the entire north-western region and parts of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. It may withdraw from some parts of Maharashtra in a day or two.

The overall good monsoon is showing in terms of crop coverage as well as production prospects. The first advance crop output estimates released by the agriculture ministry on September 19 now seem quite conservative, though the picture of main paddy crop is not yet clear.

The Hyderabad-based Directorate of Oilseeds has already marginally raised the kharif oilseed output estimates to 164.13 lakh tonnes from 161.3 lakh tonnes projected by the agriculture ministry.

Groundnut production is now put at 56.02 lakh tonnes, against ministry’s 51.8 lakh tones. But soybean outlook has been marginally scaled down to 89.83 lakh tonnes, against the ministry’s reckoning of 90.4 lakh tonnes.

On the whole, the oilseed crops have been sown on 175.99 lakh hectares, against 163.55 lakh hectares last year, marking an area expansion of 12.5 lakh hectares, or 8 per cent.

The outlook for pulses, too, is fairly encouraging with the total area under these crops having risen to 124.7 lakh hectares, against 112.4 lakh hectares in last kharif.

The bulk of this 11 per cent increase in acreage is accounted for by mung, which has been planted on 33.31 lakh hectares, against 24.6 lakh hectares last year.

This amounts to a whopping 35 per cent increase in area. The acreage under arhar and urad has also gone up by around 7 to 8 per cent. The expansion in area is attributed largely to the ruling high prices of pulses.