State-wise acreage data show that except Uttar Pradesh, most of the key growing States have a tad below year-ago levels
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R. VENGADESH
The area under sowing of all kharif crops has reached near 88 per cent of the season’s normal area while deficit from the year-ago level has narrowed to less than 2 per cent as of August 7. The South-West Monsoon rainfall deficit since June 1 currently stands at 88 per cent of normal, potentially increasing the prospects of further increase in the sowing area before the planting window closes by the end of this month.Farmers have planted kharif crops on nearly 74 lakh hectares (lh) during August 1-7 against 65.17 lh a year ago. The higher sowing in the past week has helped the country to further narrow the overall deficit. It was nearly 3 per cent until July 31.The sowing area in on-going kharif season has reached 967.92 lh as of August 7 compared with 985.89 lh in the year-ago period, down by 1.8 per cent, the Agriculture Ministry said in its weekly update on Monday. The current coverage is 87.6 per cent of the season’s normal area of 1104.46 lh.Sugarcane up in U.P.The Ministry has revised the sowing area under sugarcane after a gap of several weeks showing lower coverage at 58.31 lh from 58.62 lh year-ago. Until July 31, the government was showing 86,000 hectares higher acreage under cane this year. State-wise acreage data show that except Uttar Pradesh, the area in most of the key growing States is a tad below the year-ago levels.Uttar Pradesh has reported cane area in 28.97 lh against 28.61 lh year-ago. But, Maharashtra farmers are said to have planted cane in 11.82 lh against 11.96 lh and in Karnataka it is 7.33 lh from 7.36 lh. Similarly, area under cane in Gujarat has slipped to 1.9 lh from 2.02 lh, in Bihar to 1.89 lh from 1.96 lh, in Tamil Nadu to 1.34 lh from 1.38 lh and in Punjab to 0.81 lh from 0.95 lh.The kharif season’s main cereal, paddy, is down by 4.2 per cent at 344.78 lh against 360.67 lh a year ago. The deficit was 2.2 per cent until July 31 and widening the gap means there is slow progress in transplanting during past week. The government has set a production target of 123.15 million tonnes (mt) rice in kharif 2026 and there may not be any significant shortfall due to higher area coverage in major growing States.Pulses, nutricereals downThe area under all pulses reached 103.78 lh against 105.73 lh and that of oilseeds at 180.20 lh against 175.01 lh. The deficit in pulses has further reduced to 1.8 per cent from 6.3 per cent until previous week. Oilseeds acreage this season has exceeded year-ago level with higher area under soyabean, groundnut and sesame. Among 28.92 mt oilseeds production target fixed by the government for current season, soyabean has been aimed at 14.85 mt and groundnut at 11.35 mt.Among pulses, arhar sowing reached at 37.53 lh, down 6.5 per cent from 40.14 lh, moong (green gram) at 31.37 lh from 33.21 lh and urad (black matpe) rose to 22.86 lh from 20.29 lh. In oilseeds, soybean a tad higher at 119.92 lh from 119.66 lh, groundnut to 46.82 lh from 43.11 lh. Cotton acreage is now a notch lower at 106.01 lh from 106.42 lh, while Jute and mesta coverage was higher at 6.34 lh from 6.22 lh year-ago, data show.The coverage of nutri/coarse cereals has been reported 7.5 per cent lower at 157.77 lh against 170.6 lh. Jowar area reached 12.16 lh against 12.61 lh year-ago, whereas bajra dipped to 57.44 lh from 61.64 lh, ragi at 1.87 lh from 2.8 lh and maize at 83.56 lh from 90.15 lh.Rain deficit 12%The overall monsoon rainfall, which was 35 per cent (as per revised data) deficient in June and 1 per cent surplus in July, has now reported at 12 per cent during June 1-August 10 in which 345 out of 741 districts have reported rainfall deficit of 20 per cent or higher, India Meteorological Department (IMD) data show. The rainfall during August 1-10 was 9 per cent below normal.The government has fixed a production target of 176.16 mt of foodgrains including 8.4 mt pulses, 31.04 mt maize and 13.56 mt nutri cereals during Kharif 2026.Published on August 10, 2026
