Kharif crops: India
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Total area under kharif crops: 2013-15
The Times of India, Jul 20 2015
Vishwa Mohan & Amit Bhattacharya
Kharif crop reaps the benefit of good monsoon, sown area up 62%
The total area under kharif crops was 966.25 lakh hectares in 2014, a significan drop from the 998 lakh hec tares achieved in 2013. The poor sowing was mainly due o a weak monsoon, with rains ending 12% below normal, which eventually resulted in 5.25% less grain production during 2014-15 as ompared to 2013-14.
The sowing trend so far points to a better kharif crop in 2015, although the output would also depend on how ains perform in the rest of the season till September 2015.
Besides the good rains, the well dispersed kharif sowing an also be attributed to contin ency measures taken to insu ate the crop from the vagaries f monsoon. These measures nclude seed subsidy and con tant sharing of scientific inputs based on amount as well as patial distribution of rainfall.
2015
The Times of India, Sep 05 2015
Vishwa Mohan
Sown area of Kharif goes up in 2015
Overall monsoon rainfall deficit this year is higher than the corresponding period last year, but the sown area under kharif (summer) crops has reported an improvement with some of the crops -including pulses and sugarcane -even exceeding their normal sown area. Latest data, released by the agriculture ministry on Friday, showed that the area under kharif crop touched 998.67 lakh hectares as compared to 979.40 lakh hectares this time last year.
Though overall production will depend on other factors including distribution of rainfall till the end of this month and timely availability of other inputs like fertilizer, the area under kharif crop appears to be encouraging as it has already covered nearly 95% of the normal sowing area of 1,050 lakh hectares.
It is expected that the overall sown area may increase further as nearly three weeks of sowing operation is still left.
Exceeding of sown area of pulses (108.37 lakh hectares) than its normal sown area of 108 lakh hectares is a good sign. It is also in tune with the Centre's call to increase the area under pulses as the country has to depend on import to meet its domestic demand.
The Centre had, in fact, increased the minimum support price for pulses before he beginning of this year's sowing operation so that armers may find it attractive over paddy or coarse cereals.
The overall performance of kharif sowing operation as compared to last year (when he country had reported 12% deficit of monsoon rainfall) can, however, also be attributed to the contingency measures, like diesel subsidy scheme and others, taken by he Centre keeping in mind he prediction of `below normal' rainfall by IMD in June.
See also
Kharif crops: India
