 "Photo: Reuters")
Wheat the most sown food grains during the rabi season was planted in around 22.56 million hectares of land till Friday. Although it was nearly 2.33 million hectares more than last year, which was a drought period, it was over 0.5 million hectares lower than the normal acreage during this time of the year.
Normal acreage is the average area covered in the last five years.
Experts said that with 2014 and 2015 being drought years, acreage of 2016 rabi crops should be compared with 2013 and not in the years in between.
In 2013, when India had a normal monsoon, the area covered under wheat till December 8, 2016, was around 25.13 million hectares, which was 2.6 million hectares more than 2016.
This shows that despite Centre's assertion, the acute cash crunch in rural India is having some impact on sowing of crops.
The crop condition in many places is also not of the highest quality, while there is also a possibility of temperatures rising around the harvest time. The above factors might have compelled the Centre to waive off the import duty on wheat on Thursday, within months of lowering it to 10%.
Overall, across all crops, the total area covered till Friday (December 9, 2016) was around 47.24 million hectares, which is 7.64% more than the area covered during the same period in 2015 and just 0.56% less than the normal acreage.
Meanwhile, agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh on Friday reiterated that India's rabi sowing has not been hampered due to demonetization.
In a statement issued on Friday, Singh said that the latest sowing data shows that rabi acreage has been more than last year and hence there has been no impact of demonetisation on rabi crops.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD), meanwhile, in its weekly winter update, said, "the minimum temperatures very likely to be normal to above normal over most parts of northwest, east & northeast India during the 1st week over and over northwest India during first half of the 2nd week. These will be normal or below normal over rest parts of the country during second week."
