BENGALURU: India Ratings and Research said in a note on Thursday that India’s kharif area has increased marginally so far this year with substantial progress of the southwest monsoon.
The agency said that India’s agricultural resilience, especially towards deficient rainfall, has increased over the years and more areas have been brought under irrigation.
“As on 15 July 2022, the total area sown under Kharif crops has been 59.21 million hectares (mha), as against 59.13 mha during the same period last year. However, there are significant variations in the crops. While the area sown under oilseeds has increased by 0.92mha, pulses by 0.60mha, and coarse cereals by 0.69mha, the area under rice has seen a decline of 2.7mha. The highest decline in rice sown area has been recorded in Uttar Pradesh (0.831mha), followed by Odisha (0.361mha) and Chhattisgarh (0.331mha),” the India Ratings note said.
Monsoon rains have intensified in July after decreasing in June 2022. “Since July is a critical month for sowing, the area sown under various crops may see significant change from the reported one till July 15, 2022,” it said.
According to the third advance estimate, India’s foodgrain production touched a record high of 31.5 million tonnes (MT) in FY12.
India Ratings also said that as per the latest available data, that is for FY19, the area under irrigation at all India level has reached 52.03% as compared to 40.1% in FY97.
Consequently, the correlation between kharif foodgrain production and monsoon rains (June-September) declined from 0.53 and 0.64 for FY97-FY04 and FY05-FY13 to 0.24 for FY97-FY04 and FY05-FY13 respectively, said India Ratings.
“However, the ability to absorb rain shock varies among states and is linked to the overall area under irrigation. A look at the region-wise correlation for FY14-FY21 reveals that East and North East and South Peninsular India is more vulnerable to monsoon rains than other regions, both in terms of area sown and production. The weakest regions in terms of food production are East and North East.
Incidentally, central India, which was highly sensitive during FY97-FY04, has become less sensitive to monsoon rainfall in subsequent years.
catch all business News, market news, today’s fresh news events and breaking news Updates on Live Mint. download mint news app To get daily market updates.