)
In a review of at the end of the kharif season, the ministry of agriculture has come out with an assessment on final acreage of kharif crops.
Total area coverage of kharif crops has been reported at 999 lakh hectares in 2014 as against around 1033 lakh hectares in 2013 as per data by mid September. Cotton is the only crop that has reversed t the trend by recording increase in area coverage by 1.17 million ha compared to 11.35 million hac in 2013.
There has been marginal decrease in acreage in kharif cereal comprising rice, maize, millets etc where area coverage has been 0.67% less than 2013. However, the while millets suffered a decline in acreage by 2.02% at 54.25 million hectares, rice is only 0.12% by recording an acreage of 36.66% as against 36.78 million hectares.
The relief has been on account of kharif pulses where the decline is much less even compared to kharif cereals. While the total decline is even less than a percent, none of the pulses – arhar, black gram and moong have received any substantial loss of acreage. The total acreage of kharif pulses crop has been 9.92 million hectares as compared to 10.62 million hectares.
In case of kharif oilseeds, normal area shrinkage has been 1.63% on year over year comparison; soybean area coverage has come down by 1.21% from 12.22 million hectares to 11.01. Acreage in groundnut stood at 3.64 million hactares compared to 4.25 Million hac in 2013.
In cash crops, except for cotton, the two other crops- jute and mesta and sugarcane, area coverage is marginally less by 0.02% at 0.81 million hac and by 0.15% from 5.03 million hac to 4.87 million hac respectively.
Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar have received deficient and scanty rainfall with UP leading with a deficit of 68% rainfall followed by MP (22), Haryana (21) and Bihar (18).
According to sources, these are the latest acreage figures released by the ministry for the entire kharif season, but the production figures are yet to be finalised. However on September 19, 2014, the ministry released the first advance estimates of food grain production for the kharif season 2014-15 as per which India’s kharif grain production was estimated to be at 120.3 million metric tons (MMT), nearly 9 MMT lower than last year, and 11 MMT lower than the record kharif grain production in 2011-12. Specifically, kharif season rice production is estimated at 88 MMT (91.7 MMT last year), maize at 16 MMT (vs. 17.7 MMT), millet at 9.4 MMT (vs. 11.5 MMT).
The marginal decline for rice production has been primarily due to lower levels of crop acreage in the major rice producing states of states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Haryana. Nearly 35-38 percent of the rice crop is unirrigated, as per reports.
