The lengthening shadow of drought over the country may have shrunk, however, peripherally over the August 1-7 week. The overall scenario continues to be bleak with no or sparse rains in west and east Rajasthan, west Uttar Pradesh and west and south Haryana, but last week’s rains, coupled with the Indian Meteorological Department’s forecast of heavy rains in some regions up to August 12 has allowed the government to come up with slightly rosier revised estimates, particularly on the oilseeds and pulses production front.

According to the latest estimates, the crop loss in both sectors may be restricted to the 8-10% range. In comparision to earlier estimates in early-mid July, the picture has improved by well over 3% crop loss.

If the southwest monsoon continues to be in good form up to August 12, it is expected that a substantial part of the normal area under paddy would be covered in terms of transplantation.

Although some experts view this as over optimistic at this juncture, even conservative projections in the government now perceive that paddy transplantation in huge upland areas of Chattisgarh, written off as by and large jeopardised in the last week of July on account of a continuing severe dry spell, would be saved by persistent rains upto mid-August.

Other key paddy producing regions in Andhra Pradesh have also received good rainfall leading to the assessment that transplantation processes, wherever held up, would now be completed successfully.

The good rains up to now in August have also impacted positively, although only in a “marginal” manner, the overall rainfall deficiency percentage as compared to the normal.

While last week, the deviation was in the alarming range of —30%, it has now come down by one per cent to —29%. That’s good news if you take into consideration that the monsoon situation worsened in the last week of July since the week ending July 24, bringing the average deficiency down from —24 % deviation to —30% deviation.

Reservoir levels, too, have begun showing “a positive trend in many states,” according to ICAR officials. Rains in catchment areas have ensured a hike in the reservoir levels in Uttaranchal’s Ram Ganga, which is considered vital to irrigation in key paddy areas of the region.

Overall, the reservoir level in the 70 major reservoirs of the country, which stood at a mere 18% of the normal levels, have now gone up by one per cent, to 19%.

The Crop Weather Watch Group of the farm minsitry, which held a special meeting here today to assess the plus points of the increased rains over the last week, has concluded that the increased intensity of monsoons over the last week in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka would have a notable positive impact on pulses and oilseeds production.

The negative impact projected as compared to earlier in the oilseeds sector was primarily on account of two developments: one, key groundnut producing regions in Gujarat had not received sufficient rains in July or in June nor had key soyabean producing regions in Madhya Pradesh.

In addition, other oilseeds producing regions in Maharashtra and Karnataka had also suffered drought like conditions. The first week of August, however, had turned around the situation to some extent in Gujarat and in MP.

“Oilseeds require lesser water supply but where ever there is ample irrigation, the production has been better. And Gujarat has received satisfactory rainfall last week,” Hemendra Kumar pointed out.

According to him, the soyabean areas in Rajasthan are smaller in size and have a lesser yield. Continuing dryness in east and west Rajasthan, therefore would impact on soyabean production but not to the extent envisaged earlier.

MP, which had projected 90% crop loss on the kharif soyabean front in early July, is the other turning point, having received good to sparse rains over the last week in key regions, while rains in AP have also added to the optimistic predictions on the oilseed front.

The total area under oilseed production (including groundnut, castorseed, sesame,rapeseed, mustard, linseed, soya) is at 23.3 million hectare (’01-’02), with an overall production level of 21.2 million tonnes. Between them, MP, AP, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, TN and Karnataka and UP account for nearly 16 million tonnes of the 18.4 million tonnes produced last year.

On the pulses production front, too, the government has come out with a better report card. Maharashtra, Karnataka and AP, three of the pulse producing regions, have received ample rainfall over the first week of August afer a prolonged dry spell in July, even though UP’s pulses areas are expected to account for a good portion of the shortfall in production, projected in the range of eight to ten lakh tonnes.

Overall, the area under pulses has gone up by three million hectares to 23.1 million hectare in ‘01-’02 as compared to the previous year. Production too, has gone up to 13.9 million tonnes in ‘01-’02 as compared to 10.7 million tonnes in ‘00-’01. The average yield per hectare stands at 596 kg/ha.

However, the last official estimates in ‘98-’99 show only 12.5% of the land covered under irrigation.

PRABHA JAGANNATHAN
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
[ MONDAY, AUGUST 12, 2002 2:41:05 AM ]