Steady rice price pulls down paddy acreage

MONSOON WATCH

Since the rains were normal and well-distributed this year, the cropping pattern was not expected to change much. But that has not been the case. After the completion of about 95 per cent of kharif sowing, it has emerged that the farmers' have responded more to the prices than the rainfall.

Among the important crops, paddy is the only one to have lost on area, some 3.75 lakh hectares below the last year's. All the other major crops have gained in acreage.

This is because rice remained steady despite the rise in the prices of other agricultural commodities over the past several months.

Even the hike of Rs 65 a quintal in the procurement price is deemed inadequate under the present market conditions.

Consequently, much of the shrinkage in paddy acreage is in states such as Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, which account for the bulk of the government's rice procurement. The acreage shortfall is about 17 per cent in Tamil Nadu, 6 per cent in Andhra Pradesh and 2 per cent in Punjab. 
 

KHARIF SOWING POSITION  (Till August 23,2007)
Crop	Area sown (lakh ha)		% difference
	This year	Last year
Oilseeds
Groundnut	50.91	44.90	13
Soybean	86.87	79.75	9
Sunflower	6.90	7.83	-12
Sesamum	14.64	15.66	-7
Niger	2.17	1.75	24
Castor	6.44	5.52	17
Total Oilseeds	167.93	155.41	8
Pulses
Arhar	37.02	33.85	9
Urd	24.98	22.63	12
Moong	30.33	23.55	13
Others	20.51	25.27	-9
Total Pulses	112.85	105.05	7

On the other hand, the area under coarse cereals, notably maize and bajra, whose prices have remained high due to demand from poultry and other industries, has gone up by more than 6 per cent.

Oilseeds acreage is up this year by nearly 8 per cent, with groundnut gaining 13 per cent and soybean 9 per cent in cropped area. Even crops such as niger and castor have been planted on about 24 per cent and 17 per cent more area, respectively.

The same is the case of pulses, which have ruled abnormally high during the whole of last year, raising farmers' expectations of good returns.

The total area under kharif pulses is reckoned to have increased by about 7 per cent, with area under moong up by 13 per cent from last year and 35 per cent from long-period average. Urad, another high-priced pulse, has gained about 12 per cent in acreage and arhar, the most important and widely consumed kharif pulse, about 9 per cent.

Cotton sowing is over in most areas. The latest estimates put the coverage at 87.7 lakh hectares, about 6.7 per cent more than last year's 82.21 lakh hectares. Nearly 60 per cent of this area has been planted with transgenic Bt cotton.

Among other commercial crops, jute and mesta are currently being harvested and sugarcane is in the fields.

While the area under Jute and mesta was down marginally this year by about 3.5 per cent, sugarcane acreage has risen by 6 per cent to 52 lakh hectares despite the glut in the sugar market. Most of the increase in cane acreage has taken place in Maharashtra and Karnataka. In Uttar Pradesh, cane acreage has dropped marginally.

The overall monsoon rainfall was about 3 per cent above normal till August 22 despite the week prior to this date registering a 35 per cent deficiency in rainfall due to the week monsoon phase. The total rainfall since the beginning of the monsoon season was estimated at 669.6 mm till August 22, against the normal of 652.1 mm for this period.

About 29 of the total 36 meteorological sub-divisions have received excess or normal rainfall while the remaining 7 have remained deficient.

These include Arunachal Pradesh (-21 per cent), east Madhya Pradesh (-33 per cent), west Uttar Pradesh (-31 per cent), Haryana, including Delhi (-28 per cent), Marathwada (-35 per cent) and Telengana (-22 per cent). The main areas of concern are Marathwada and Telengana. Though east Madhya Pradesh is also rain-starved, this area is likely to get showers in the next few days, which would provide the much-needed life support to the standing crops.

Haryana and west Uttar Pradesh have adequate irrigation facilities. The weather office expects formation of another cyclonic circulation over Bay of Bengal by September 2 which may cause good rainfall in Orissa and northern coastal Andhra Pradesh. On the west coast, an off-shore trough continues to run from south Gujarat to Kerala.

It may result in widespread and heavy rainfall at some places in the next three days.

Fairly widespread rainfall is also expected in Bihar, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim and north-eastern states in the next two to three days. Isolated rains are forecast for Kerala, coastal Karnataka, Konkan, Goa and central Maharashtra, Haryana, Delhi and west Uttar Pradesh. The Himalayan hills, from Jammu and Kashmir to Uttaranchal, are likely to received widespread rainfall. Water storage in the country's major 81 reservoirs monitored by the Central Water Commission continues to remain satisfactory.

Though the total water stock, estimated at 104.66 billion cubic metres (BCM) on August 23, was about 6 per cent below the last year's corresponding position, but it was still 31 per cent above normal, boding well for irrigation as well as hydel power production.

These 81 dams together have a total irrigation potential of 162.44 million hectares and hydel power production capacity of 14,533 mw.