After a gap of nearly one-and-a-half months, rainfall has seen a revival across the state over the past two weeks, giving some respite to farmers in distress. Agricultural activities have gained momentum. Karnataka, where the kharif crop failed miserably this year, is hoping to save the standing crops as much as possible. The revival of rains has helped build up moisture in the soil. With the retreating south-west monsoon and the following north-east monsoon expected to be good, the state agriculture department has raised the rabi target about 9 per cent from 3.4 million hectares to 3.7 million hectares.
The outlook for the forthcoming rabi season (October-December) is quite positive, said a senior official at the agriculture department. Jowar, cotton, bengal gram, sun flower, wheat and maize are some of the important rabi crops in the state. The recent rains are helpful for sowing kharif crops, including ragi, mustard and horse gram in the southern districts and early rabi crops like jowar and cotton in northern districts. Rains will also help grow fodder crops.
The target for kharif crops this year was 7.2 million hectares. However, due to the lack of rains during July 1 to August 16, sowing did not take place on 1.9 million hectares. Adding to the woes, crops in about 2 million hectares dried up due to moisture stress. Pulses were the most affected, as major pulses growing districts including Gulbarga, Raichur, Bidar and Koppal witnessed a prolonged dry spell at the crop development stage.
Now, towards the end of the sowing season, farmers in Gulbarga, Raichur and Bidar have resumed sowing of tur dal, said an official at the Tur Development Board. While there is no scope for the revival of other short-duration crops like moong and urad, it is hoped that some part of standing tur crop could be saved. Earlier, it was feared that tur output this year would be only about 20-30 per cent of last year’s output. However, now the Tur Board is of the view that tur output will improve and it will be about 50 per cent of last year’s output which stood at 340,000 tonnes.
“Rainfall in the past 15 days has changed mindsets. As a result, prices of tur dal have fallen to some extent,” said Ramesh Chandra Lahoti, president, The Bangalore Wholesale Foodgrains and Pulses Merchants Association. About 15 days ago the wholesale price of tur was about Rs 88. Now it has fallen about 15 per cent and is being sold in the range of Rs 74-78, he said.
The state government has declared 86 taluks in the 20 districts as drought-hit, of which three districts in the most backward region of Hyderabad-Karnataka are ‘severely-hit’. Taking into account the recent rainfall that set in from August 22 across the state, the average rainfall has been above normal.
According to data with the meteorological department, during the June 1 to August 26 period, north interior Karnataka received 349 mm of rains, south interior Karnataka 584 mm and Coastal Karnataka 2,524 mm.