Food and cash crops sowing gains ground

MONSOON WATCH

The pace of crop sowing has been far more brisk this year than in past years despite the monsoon having remained in limbo for 17 days between June 6 and 22.

All major food and cash crops, barring bajra, have been planted on a much larger acreage than in last season. The rainfall at most places, except Kutch and adjoining areas has been quite favourable for farm operations.

However, the floods in Bihar are causing concern, especially because these may accentuate in the next few days owing to heavy rainfall in the catchment of the rivers and water streams flowing into the state from Nepal.

Most parts of the country are experiencing a wet spell, which is likely to continue till at least July 15 in the north and even beyond elsewhere. This will facilitate sowing operations.

However, the weather office's warning of very heavy rainfall at a few places in Bihar, east Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal may necessitate temporary suspension of sowing in these areas.

In fact, isolated heavy showers have also been predicted in Punjab, Haryana, West Bengal, Konkan, Goa and Coastal Karnataka in the next two to three days.

According to the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), a western disturbance today hovered over Jammu and Kashmir and its adjoining areas which is likely to interact with the monsoon flow in next two day.

This may cause fairly widespread rainfall with isolated very heavy showers in the north-western hills and the Indo-Gangetic plains. Rainfall may reduce after July 15 in the northwest India.

The NCMRWF prediction model also suggests formation of a low pressure area over north-west Bay of Bengal around July 15, which may help in the continuation of the ongoing rainy spell in eastern India till July 18. Similarly, rainfall in the west coast region, central India and southern peninsula may increase during July 16 to 18.

The cumulative monsoon rainfall till July 5 (up to which data is available) was deficient by 9 per cent in whole country. But the copious rainfall received after July 5 and anticipated more rains in the next few days may considerably reduce or eliminate this deficiency.

The country's major water reservoirs which support the irrigation network and hydel power plants are fast filling up. Total water stored in 76 major reservoirs rose by over 7.5 billion cubic metres (BCM) in one week "" from 29.73 BCM on June 30 to 37.27 BCM on July 7.

At that level, it was 21 per cent higher than the corresponding position last year and 41 per cent more than past 10 years average storage.

Information on crop sowing available with the agriculture ministry indicates that paddy has been planted over 6.1 million hectares till July 10 this year, against 5.3 million hectares till this date last year.

This marks an increase of 7.3 per cent. Coarse cereals have been sown on 7.2 million hectares, against 6.7 million hectares in the previous season.

However, bajra sowing is lagging behind as part of western Rajasthan is yet to get adequate rains. Bajra plantings have been relatively low also in Madhya Pradesh.

Among the commercial crops, cotton sowing is over on about 3.2 million hectares against 2.7 million hectares last year and sugarcane planting on 4.4 million hectares against 4.2 million hectares last year.

Similarly, sowing of pulses is also apace with about 6 lakh hectares more area having already been covered with these crops. The total area planted with pulses (arhar, urad, moong, kulthi, moth and others) so far is estimated at 2.6 million hectares, against 2 million hectares till this date last year.

The condition of the crops is reported to be normal. Oilseeds also present a similar picture with 3.4 million hectares having already been covered by crops like groundnut, soybean, sunflower, sesamum, niger and castor. Last year, 3.3 million hectares were sown till this time.

However, some delay in planting was reported from Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh due to belated rains. Agriculture experts have advised farmers to drain out excess water from the fields of crops other than paddy.

Crops such as cotton, coarse cereals and pulses can get damaged due to prolonged inundation. In parts of Rajasthan where monsoon is still awaited, the farmers are advised to plant crops such as bajra, moong, cowpea, mothbean, castor and sesamum, using recommended varieties.