By Reuters

NEW DELHI: India aims to produce a record 283.7 million tonnes of grains in the crop to June 2019, the farm ministry said in a statement on Wednesday, up from 277.49 million tonnes of estimated production in the current year.

India, the world's leading producer and consumer of an array of farm goods, is likely to harvest 113 million tonnes of rice and 100 million tonnes of wheat in the 2018/19 crop year, the ministry added.

It also set a target to produce 36 million tonnes of oilseeds in 2018/19 against an estimate of 29.9 million tonnes in 2017/18. India is the world's biggest vegetable oil importer.

The target for cane output in India, the world's biggest sugar consumer, is set at 355 million tonnes, up from the scheduled 353.2 million tonnes in 2017/18.

Indian farmers will start planting summer-sown crops from the rainy months of June, with harvests from October.

Earlier this month the weather office said India was likely to receive average monsoon rains in 2018, raising the possibility of higher farm and economic growth in Asia's third-biggest economy, where half of the farmland lacks irrigation.