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Informist, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025

By J. Navya Sruthi and Shreya Shetty

MUMBAI – Despite a fall in the area under moong and maize as of Friday, market participants expect the acreage of both crops to rise on an annual basis, moving ahead. The recent drop in their acreage was primarily due to delay in rabi crops harvesting.

As of Friday, India's summer maize acreage was down 15.2% on year at 89,200 hectares and the area under moong or greengram fell 14.2% on year to 68,100 hectares, according to the data from the agriculture ministry.  

Rahul Chauhan, director of IGrain India, expects moong and maize acreage to increase in the current season. "Maize prices are attractive and in Madhya Pradesh, farmers prefer sowing moong in summer season," he said. Farmers prefer moong during the summer as it helps retain nitrogen levels in the soil, which is needed for kharif crops. 

"Rabi crops are still being harvested all over the country, so the sowing of zaid, or summer crops, has been delayed," said Dinesh Mangal, a pulses trader. Though sowing of summer crops has begun in some pockets of Madhya Pradesh, it will stary in full swing only after 15-20 days. "Usually, summer crop sowing begins in February or March, but this year, proper acreage will only start after mid-March," he said. 

Rabi crops are sown between October and December after the monsoon and harvested between February and May. However, rabi sowing started late this year because of delay in withdrawal of the southwest monsoon, which in turn delayed the harvest of kharif and rabi crops and sowing of summer crops. Zaid or summer crops are usually sown in February and March, and harvested in May and June.

The delay notwithstanding, the overall prospects of the summer crop sowing look "good", Mangal said. The total area under summer crops was up 2.2% on year at 2.23 million hectares as of Friday. This was comparatively better than the total acreage as of Feb. 14, when the area under summer crops was at 1.52 million hectares, down 1.7% on year. 

The area under rice, the largest summer crop, was 1.95 million hectares as of Friday, up 7.1% from 1.82 million hectares a year ago. It was this increase in rice acreage that pushed up total acreage, as the area under all other major summer crops fell on year. Rice, moong, maize, and groundnut are major crops grown during the summer in India. 

Maize production during the summer season in 2023-24 (Jul-Jun) was higher by 25% on year at 3.4 million tonnes and that of moong was nearly unchanged from the previous year at 1.85 million tonnes. The government is yet to release its estimates for 2024-25.

RESERVOIR LEVELS

Meanwhile, the water level in 155 key reservoirs in the country fell to 98.974 billion cubic metres as of Feb. 20 from 104.580 billion cubic metres as of Feb. 13, according to data from the Central Water Commission. However, the water level was up 20% from a year ago and 16% higher than the normal storage for the period, according to the data. Normal storage is the average storage for the last 10 years. The current level is 55% of the total live storage capacity of 180.852 billion cubic metres.

Above-normal rainfall during the southwest monsoon led to higher water levels in most reservoirs in the country. Both zaid and rabi crops depend on irrigation from resevoirs, which are usually replenished during the southwest monsoon every year.  End

Edited by Avishek Dutta

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