In a development that could help cool rising prices of some food items in the coming months, there is good news on the farm sowing front with overall sown area rising 10.3% over last year, despite the Southwest Monsoon’s progress so far falling a tad short of the long period average and last year’s rain levels by July 15.
While 12 States, including Kerala, Odisha, Punjab, Jharkhand, and Haryana, are still facing deficient rainfall as per official data, the sown area of rice, pulses and oilseeds in the country had risen over 20% by Monday, while Bajra, Jowar and coarse cereals are still lagging.
Within pulses, a steep rise in acreage of Arhar has raised overall sowing by 26%, while Moong, bean and other pulses have declined notably, Bank of Baroda economist Sonal Badhan said in a monsoon and crop sowing update on Tuesday.
Wholesale pulses inflation was at 21.6% in June, while retail prices were up 16.1%, marking the 13th successive month of 10%-plus price rise in lentils. Cereals inflation had accelerated to 9.3% in June, with prices of paddy and wheat rising 12.1% and 6.2%, respectively, at the wholesale level.
With major sowing occurring in July and August, the progress of monsoon will play a determinant role in managing food inflation and any kind of shortfall can impact prices adversely, the bank’s economist Jahnavi Prabhakar said in a separate note.
The sown area for oilseeds has risen 22% over a year-ago level, driven by a 31% growth in soybean sowing, even as the area for groundnut is down 0.2%. “Within cereals, sowing area of crops such as Bajra (-43.5%) and Jowar (-14.5%) has declined the most, while it has increased in case of small millets, Maize and Ragi,” Ms. Badhan said.
Water reservoir levels in most of the country remains below last year’s levels with an average of 26% of storage capacity filled, as of July 11. While reservoir levels are healthiest in the Northern region at 30% capacity, it is sharply lower than 63% a year ago. By contrast, the Southern region is the only one to record higher storage than a year ago, with 26% capacity filled, compared with 22% on July 11, 2023.
