 "Jute")
Area under kharif pules rose 33 per cent to 14.2 million hectares as on Friday year-on-year on the back of good monsoon which may lead to fall in prices of lentils, already visible in some of them.
As Kharif season sowing is nearing completion, total acreage under various crops rose 3.7 per cent to 103.4 million tonnes in this period.
While acreage seems to be only marginally higher than last year's, good monsoon would lead to rise in productivity and better agriculture growth in third quarter compared to a mere 1.8 per cent in the first quarter of the current financial year.
This is despite monsoon falling below expectations in August and June as the Met Department has forecast better than normal rains for the four-month season ending September.
Good monsoon would also enable rabi crops to be give better production this year as adequate soil moisture would be there.
"We expect agriculture production to grow by 4 per cent in the second half," Devendra Pant, chief economist with India Ratings, said.
However, production of sugarcane, Jute and cotton may fall as acreage under these crops declined.
The government expects pulses production to increase to 20 million tonnes in the 2016-17 crop year (July-June) from 16.47 million tonnes in the previous year.
According to data released by the Agriculture Ministry, pulses acreage has gone up significantly in Rajasthan at 3.3 million hectares, followed by Maharashtra (2.5 million hectares), Madhya Pradesh (2.1 million hectares) and Karnataka (1.8 million hectares) so far in the ongoing kharif season.
Pulses area has also gone up in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Jhakhand, the data showed.
Meanwhile, harvesting of moong has begun in parts of Karnataka and Rajasthan, and the government is gearing up to procure the lentil at the minimum support price (MSP) to avoid distress sale by farmers.
According to the ministry's data, area sown under oilseeeds has improved marginally to 17.9 million hectares so far from 17.8 million hectares in the year-ago period.
The sowing area of paddy, the main kharif crop, has also increased marginally by 2.3 per cent to 37.3 million hectares from 36.4 million hectares earlier.
Coverage for coarse cereals stood at 18.4 million hectares, 4.9 per cent higher from 17.5 million hectares in the same period of the previous year.
However, sugarcane area fell by 7.7 per cent to 4.5 million hectares, from 4.9 million hectares. Sown area for cotton too declined by 10.7 per cent to 10.2 million hectares from 11.4 million hectares.
Jute and mesta acreage fell by 2.2 per cent to 0.76 million hectares from 0.77 million hectares.
The country produced around 252 million tonnes of foodgrains in each of the past two crop years (2015-16 and 2014-15), impacted by two consecutive drought years.
Amid hopes of better rains this year, the government is targeting a record production of 270 million tonnes in 2016-17 crop year.
