Farmers have so far sown only 38.91 lakh hectares (lh) under pulses in the current rabi season from October.
Dry weather extending to the post-monsoon period has led to reduced plantings of most rabi crops, raising the prospect of a fourth consecutive harvest failure for farmers and also making it more difficult for the RBI to slash interest rates.
Farmers have so far sown only 38.91 lakh hectares (lh) under pulses in the current rabi season from October. While more than last year’s corresponding coverage of 34.42 lh, it is below the normal five-year average of 46.87 lh for this time.
Even the increased area is mainly due to farmers in Maharashtra and Karnataka going in for early chana (chickpea) sowings, to make up for the loss of their kharif arhar (pigeon-pea) and urad (black gram) crops from the south-west monsoon’s failure. But this early-October sown rabi pulses crop, too, is now experiencing moisture stress.
“It hasn’t rained for the past one-and-a-half months in the entire chana belt of northern Karnataka (Bidar, Gulbarga, Bijapur and Raichur) and Maharashtra. Whatever rains we are seeing is only in south Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu”, said Shivasharanappa Nigudgi, former president of the Gulbarga Dal Millers Association.
On the other hand, area under chana in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh has witnessed a huge drop. “Farmers here largely grow chana using the residual moisture from the south-west monsoon rains. Since the monsoon’s withdrawal happened early this time and there has been very little rains after the second fortnight of September, it has impacted sowings”, N.P. Singh, director of the Indian Institute of Pulses Research at Kanpur, told The Indian Express.
The Agriculture Ministry’s data shows only 0.64 lh planted under chana in MP compared to the normal area of 11.64 lh at this time, with Rajasthan similarly reporting coverage of 0.50 lh (against the five-year average of 3.79 lh). Area under other rabi pulses such as masur (lentil) and matar (field pea) has also fallen, which may add to the woes of consumers already shelling out over Rs 150/kg for arhar and urad dal.
Rainfall for the country as a whole has been 35 per cent below normal rainfall during October 1 to November 11. Coming after a 14 per cent deficient monsoon season (June-September), the possibility of a poor rabi crop, on the back of lower kharif production, isn’t being ruled out. Given last year’s poor monsoon and the damage to the standing rabi crop from unseasonal rains/hailstorms in March, it would translate into four consecutive bad harvests.
The monsoon’s early withdrawal and lack of rains in the subsequent period has also hit sowing of rabi oilseeds (mainly rapeseed/mustard) and wheat. Wheat area has fallen sharply in MP (0.55 lh against last year’s corresponding level of 10.88 lh), Rajasthan (0.60 lh versus 2.72 lh), Punjab (8.20 lh versus 11.55 lh), Haryana (2.13 lh versus 6.86 lh) and UP (2.10 lh versus 6.58 lh). Farmers have likewise reduced mustard plantingsfrom 23.89 lh to 11.79 lh in Rajasthan, from 8.89 lh to 5.2 lh in UP, and from 5.13 lh to 0.37 lh in MP.