Monsoon revival boosts summer crop planting in India

Konark: A revival in monsoon rains has accelerated planting of summer-sown crops such as cotton, soybean and rice across much of India, sharply reducing an earlier sowing deficit caused by below-normal rainfall.

India is the world's largest rice exporter, accounting for about 40% of global shipments and ‌the biggest importer ⁠of ⁠vegetable oils such as palm oil, soyoil and sunflower oil.

Indian farmers typically sow summer crops ​in June and July after the annual monsoon reaches the southern state of Kerala. ​This year, however, the monsoon arrived three days late and its advance across key western farming regions stalled for about two weeks, delaying planting.


Also Read: Erratic monsoon pushes farmers towards low-water crops, vegetables

Summer crop ​sowing was nearly a quarter lower than a ⁠year earlier ‌at the end of June, but the shortfall has ​since narrowed to ​less than 5%, according to data compiled by the ⁠Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare.

Farmers had planted summer-sown ​crops on 78.7 million hectares as of July 24, ​compared with 82.6 million hectares a year earlier, the ministry's data showed.

The area under rice cultivation stood at 23.4 million hectares, down from last year's 24 million hectares, the data showed.

Also Read: Centre to release Rs 335 crore to Maharashtra as second instalment under RKVY scheme: Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan

"We were waiting for rain before transplanting the seedlings. After we received good rainfall this month, we started paddy ‌transplanting," said Krishna Beuraa, a farmer from Konark in the eastern state of Odisha.

India's monsoon rainfall deficit has narrowed to 16% ​from nearly 40% ​at the end ⁠of June, following widespread rains over the past few weeks, although some regions are still facing rainfall deficits of as much as 40%.

Farmers have planted soybeans ​on 11.4 million hectares, down 3% from a year ago.

Corn was planted on 7.8 million hectares down 9.7% from the same period last year. The area in which cotton was planted dropped 4% to 9.87 million hectares, while sugar cane area rose 1.5% to 5.76 million hectares.