Maize outshines all other crops as India’s kharif sowing nears completion, total area 1% up
Corn on the cob in field, cultivated maize crops ripe and ready for harvest istock photo for BL
| Photo Credit:
stevanovicigor
What started as promising one for many Kharif crops due to an early start of sowing operations this year after the monsoon onset over Kerala was a week ahead of normal, hopes for the season have faded away as it progressed. Now, only maize crop has reported a substantial jump – 10.65 lakh hectares (lh) or 12.6 per cent from the year-ago period.
Even the paddy coverage in the past fortnight was not even 25,000 hectares whereas in the year-ago period it was 11.4 lh, indicating that the sowing season is over now for the cereal crop.
According to the latest data released by the Agriculture Ministry, overall Kharif sowing reached 1,115.86 lh as of September 19 from 1,100.42 lh a year ago.
The area coverage under kharif season’s main cereal paddy reached 438.51 lh as on September 19 (was 438.28 lh as on September 5) from 430.06 lh a year ago, which is 2 per cent higher while that of pulses reached 119.29 lh from 118.4 lh a year ago.
In the pulses category, urad (black matpe) acreage ios up 6.6 per cent at 24.07 lh from 22.59 lh and moong (green gram) acreage down by 0.5 per cent at 34.79 lh from 34.96 lh. Arhar (pigeon peas) area dropped by tad at 46.10 lh from 46.34 lh a year ago.
The coverage of maize has reached 94.95 lh against 84.30 lha year ago, which is a record and the shift towards the coarse cereal has impacted almost every other crop which experts said farmers’ reliance on it amid good price and climate resilience factor.
The nutri/coarse cereals area has reached at 194.01 lh from 181.59 lh, up 6.8 per cent in which Jjowar (sorghum) area was 14.07 lh against 14.14 lh a year ago and bajra (millet) at 68.44 lh against 68.07 lh and ragi up by 6.6 per cent at 11.21 lh from 10.52 lh.
Oilseeds, cotton acreage decline
Oilseeds area continued to be lower at 189.51 lh as of September 19 from 194.67 lh a year ago, down by 2.7 per cent. Soybean acreage slipped 4.6 per cent to 120.44 lh from 126.26 lh and that of groundnut acreage was a tad higher at 48.14 lh from 47.79 lh. The sunflower area was lower by 2.8 per cent at 0.70 lh from 0.72 lh a year ago.
The cotton acreage dropped 2.5 per cent to 109.9 lh from 112.76 lh. Sugarcane and Jjute planting has been completed and provisional data show that the cane area reached at 59.07 lh against 57.22 lh, whereas jute coverage was 5.56 against 5.74 lh. The third estimate shows sugarcane acreage in 2024-25 entire season was 53.58 lh, which points to reconciliation of data as the weekly updated sheet has put the year-ago acreage number much higher at 57.22 lh.
Published on September 22, 2025
