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Crop



Area in 2019



Area in 2018



Rice



36.56



37.61



Pulses



13.00



13.26



Coarse cereals



17.52



17.25



Oilseeds



17.33



17.35



Cotton



12.58



11.81



Total



102.94



103.56















Area in million ha







Total is not the sum of above



Source: Agriculture ministry





NEW DELHI: The receding of water in flood affected areas of Bihar, Odisha and Karnataka helped recover paddy area, narrowing the gap from last week’s shortfall of 1.75 million ha to just one million ha. Farmers in these areas planted short-duration varieties of paddy to compensate the crop damage due to flood. With recovery in sowing after flood, the acreage under kharif crops has almost touched last year’s level.“The recovery is fast. We expect more areas to be covered next week. We don’t’ see any drop in acreage. There is an overall deficit of 0.61 million ha as against last year but when we compare with average of last few years, there is increase of 0.69 million ha this year,” said a senior agriculture department official.Agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar said that there will be no shortfall in production.“There is no threat to crops. We don’t expect any shortfall in food grains production,” he said.The government expects to meet its food grain production target of 291.1 million tonnes set for this year. In 2018-19, the food grains production is estimated to be 284.95 million tonnes, as per the fourth advanced estimate.According to latest data on crop sowing, rice planting is down by 2.78 from last year while overall sowing is lagging by less than 1%. The planting of pulses is down less than 2% while acreage of oilseeds and coarse cereals including jowar, bajra and maize has touched last year’s mark. The sowing of cotton, however, has seen a rise of 6.5%, raising hopes of a good harvest.The cumulative rainfall in this season as on Friday was on par with normal rainfall despite a relative dry spell over last few days. Due to heavy rains in August, major reservoirs of the country are brimming with water at 109% of the last year’s levels, allaying fears of shortage of water for irrigation and drinking.“Due to late surge in rains, the moisture-content in soil looks healthy. While, there doesn’t seem to be any drop in Kharif output, Rabi production too looks promising with filled reservoirs,” said PK Joshi, Fellow, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences.