Estimates of Kharif production should be below 2.5% due to weak monsoon

Estimates of Kharif production should be below 2.5% due to weak monsoon

There is a possibility of rising inflation in the country as food grain production is estimated to fall by 3.5million tonnes to 135 million tonnes in the current kharif season. Official sources said today that there is a fear of food shortage due to lack of rainfall in some parts of the country and in some other areas. By keeping monsoon better, the country's food production record was 138.5 million tonnes in the kharif season of 2016-17. According to sources, total Kharif foodgrain production: There is possibility of about 135 million tonnes in the current session, combined with rice, pulses and coarse cereals. The sowing of kharif crops starts near July and the harvesting starts from October. He said that the main reason for this decline is the decrease in the area of cultivation of paddy and pulse crops in view of weak rainfall and soft prices of pulses.

Sources said that the production of rice is estimated to be reduced to 96.3 million tonnes from the previous Kharif season of 95 million tonnes. He said that this slight decline is likely to be in the pulses. However, the production of coarse cereals will be normal during the current kharif season. This is an initial assessment of production of kharif crops and production figures can be increased later as farmers can sow late in flood affected areas. Apart from this, rainfall has started in some states like Karnataka, where there was a situation of drought during June.

According to official data, till September 8, the area under sowing of paddy was less than 37.146 million hectare which was 37.689 million hectares in the same period a year ago. Similarly, the area of pulse sowing also declined from 14.484 million hectares to 13.917 million hectares whereas the area under sowing of coarse grains also fell from 18.606 million hectares to 18.343 million hectares.

For example, the state government official said that food production in Karnataka could fall by about 25 per cent to 7.5 million tonnes this year. GS Srinivas Reddy, director of the Karnataka State Progress Disaster Monitoring Center told PTI that sowing could not be sown due to lack of rainfall during the crucial month of June and July. Therefore, under the Kharif crops, more land could not be brought under its purview. We estimate 25 percent decline in kharif production. Floods were witnessed in Assam, Bihar, Gujarat and Rajasthan, but in some parts of Karnataka, Chhisgarh and Tamil Nadu, there was drought. Earlier this year, Agriculture Secretary SK Patnaik had said that the southwest monsoon considered to be important for Kharif crops has been almost normal except for some parts. He said that the situation in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Peninsular India, which has witnessed less rainfall, improved in the last two weeks.

Estimation of production of oilseeds better

During the last two months of the ongoing monsoon season, the production of oilseeds in the kharif season has increased due to the similar distribution of rain. Production of edible oil in the country is expected to reach record level during the oilseed crushing season 2017-18. One of the country's largest research companies, GGN International of Indore has forecast that during the oil year (November to October) 2017-18, there will be a total production of 7.66 million tonnes of edible oil in the country, which was 7.05 lakh tonnes last year.

With the increase of record 24.2 million tonnes in the opening stock, the availability of edible oil from domestic sources in India is expected to reach record high of 10 million tonnes. Indian edible oil importers have deposited huge stocks over the past few months due to the fall in prices of crude palm oil (CPO). In the year 2016-17, total openings stock (the remaining stock of last year) was 1.92 million tonnes, so that the total availability of edible oil in the country is 8.97 million tonnes in that year.

With the estimated increase in domestic production, the country's annual food import bill is expected to be lower. At present, India spends $10000 million on imports of 1.5 million tonnes of edible oil. At present, the imports of CPO in the country mainly from Indonesia, from refined oil to Malaysia, from sunflower oil to Ukraine and refined soya oil import from Argentina.

There has been a continuous drought in India in the last two years, due to which low production of oilseeds has been reduced. Due to this, production of edible oil from domestic sources is also low. Last year, the production of soya bean was reduced, but crushing for domestic oilseed crushing traders was not a beneficial deal because of lower oil prices in the interational market. Due to this, soybean crushing has not been done in large quantities so far this season.