Monsoon is back in almost all the rain-starved areas of the peninsula, Maharashtra and parts of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. As a result, there has been a dramatic change in the overall kharif crop outlook.
Conditions are turning favourable for planting paddy, the main crop, as well as pulses, oilseeds and even cotton.
In other areas, where the rainfall has been more or less satisfactory, kharif sowing has progressed well. The overall area planted under paddy so far is 2.7 million hectares more than last year. With more sowing likely in the peninsular region, the total area under this staple crop might expand this year.
The government's announcement of a minimum support price of paddy at Rs 850 a quintal, lower than the Rs 1,000 recommended by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, has not deterred farmers, thanks to the anticipation of a suitable bonus.
Cotton has, however, been a major victim of rainfall shortage, especially in the key growing belt of Maharashtra. The area under the crop is down by a million hectares. Some of this lag may, however, be made up thanks to the revival of rains.
Significantly, almost all the area planted under cotton so far has been seeded with the transgenic, pest-protected Bt-cotton hybrids. The decease in cotton production due to area shortfall may, therefore, be mitigated to an extent by better yield.
Among the coarse cereals, bajra is the only crop that has gained in area. The acreage under maize, the crop in demand from the poultry and starch industry, and jowar is down, mainly due to low rainfall in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
Till July 24, oilseeds have been planted on about 13.44 million hectares, marginally down from last year's 13.68 million hectares in the same period. The bulk of the area shortfall is accounted for by groundnut (down by 3,76,000 hectares) and sunflower (3,43,000 hectares) while the acreage under soyabean is up by a significant 0.75 million hectares.
Sowing of pulses also lags significantly behind last year's level. The total planted area under pulses, till July 24, was 6.38 million hectares, some 1.4 million hectares lower than last year's 7.77 million hectares.
The encouraging news from the India Meteorological Department is that the rains are likely to continue for a few more days. It has forecast fairly-widespread rainfall in the north of the peninsula and north-eastern states and scattered-to-fairly-widespread showers in north-west India till August 5. Besides, isolated heavy downpour has been projected for the next two days in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, south Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha, Punjab, Haryana and west Uttar Pradesh.
The revival of the monsoon after a prolonged lull in the southern region has also reduced worries of re-filling the water reservoirs. The total water level in the 81 major reservoirs monitored regularly by the Central Water Commission had risen to 44.15 billion cubic metres by July 25 from 41.98 BCM on July 18.
Despite this improvement, the total backlog in the replenishment of reservoirs has not yet been wiped out. The July 25 water stock was about 46 per cent below 81.27 BCM held in these dams on this date last year and some 3 per cent below the long period average level for this time of the year.
There were seven dams which were less than 30 per cent full. Three others had reported nil live storage. These are Sriramsagar (Andhra Pradesh) and Bhima and Yelderi (both in Maharashtra). The other seven dams with rather low water levels are Balimela, Upper Kolab and Upper Indravati in Orissa, Dantiwada in Gujarat, Sholayar in Tamil Nadu, Gima in Maharashtra and Idukki in Kerala.