Sowing of wheat in the ongoing rabi season has not picked up yet but planting of oilseeds is in the full swing with total area this year so far surpassing last season's levels, an official data showed.
Releasing the preliminary sowing data, the Agriculture Ministry said that oilseeds area coverage during the 2014-15 rabi season so far is 31.36 lakh hactares, while it was 28.41 lakh hactares during the corresponding period of 2013-14.
Sowing of wheat, the key rabi crop, has not yet picked up as harvesting of kharif (summer) rice is still underway in some states.
Farmers have sown wheat in 4.47 lakh hectares this season so far, as against 9.39 lakh hectares in the year-ago period.
"Sowing of wheat will pick up in the next one week. The harvesting of kharif rice is still going on due to late sowing of the crop owing to delayed monsoon," Agriculture Commissioner J S Sandhu told PTI.
Sowing of other crops have already begun and the coverage will improve in the coming days, he added.
Sowing in the rabi (winter) season starts from October, while harvesting is done during March-April.
As per the data, area sown to pulses is lagging behind last year's level. Farmers have sown pulses in 23.98 lakh hectare as against 30.86 lakh hectare in the review period.
In the rabi conference held in September, the Centre asked the state governments to focus during the rabi season on 3.37 million hectare that was left unsown due to delayed monsoon in the kharif season.
States have been asked to concentrate on improving production of pulses and oilseeds during the rabi season, as the acreage under these two crops have been affected in the kharif season due to delayed rains.
