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Poor water availability in States such as Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka is hurting rabi paddy transplantation.
As a result, the rabi paddy acreage so far is down by about 27 per cent at 14.76 lakh hectares (lh) against last year’s 20.42 lh.
In Andhra Pradesh, paddy or rice acreage is down by 26 per cent at 6.68 lh (9.08 lh). In Karnataka, which has faced drought this year, paddy has been transplanted on a mere 79,000 hectares against 1.27 lh in the same period last year.
Paddy acreage is also down in West Bengal at 4.30 lh (7 lh). However, in Tamil Nadu, the acreage stood unchanged at 76,000 hectares.
Earlier this week, Agriculture SecretaryAshish Bahuguna had attributed sluggish paddy transplantation in the southern states mainly due to poor water availability.
States such as Karnataka and Maharashtra, which form the catchment areas for rivers flowing in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, had faced drought this year due to erratic monsoon.
Wheat acreage low
Except for rice, other rabi crops such as gram, rapeseed mustard, sorghum, maize and barley are seen to be doing well with higher acreage being reported in many of the crops.
However, the wheat acreage is marginally lower than last year, but the Government expects wheat output to be same as that of last year’s 94 million tonnes.
Sorghum acreage stood at 38.81 lh as on February 1 against 37.65 lh in the corresponding period last year. Coverage of maize stood at 14.28 lh (12.58 lh ).
Barley has been planted on 7.94 lh (7.80 lh). Gram has been planted on 93.20 lh (89.58 lh), while moong acreage stood at 5.72 lh (5.34 lh). However, urad acreage has seen a marginal decline at 7.43 lh (9.31 lh).
Last year, the country’s foodgrain production stood at 260 million tonnes (mt) with record rice output of 104 mt and wheat at 94 mt.
> Vishwanath.kulkarni@thehindu.co.in
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