While officials are confident about the prospect of normal plantings this year, net acreage varies slightly by crop but is still less than a third of normal plantings
Post Date – 11:15 PM, Monday – July 10
Hyderabad: The state government will deploy Department of Agriculture machinery on site from Monday as part of the stocktaking mission to accurately assess the progress of the Harif operation, which has been severely affected by poor rainfall in the first phase of the season.
While officials are confident about the prospect of normal planting this year, net acreage varies slightly by crop but is still less than one-third of normal.
Operations in Kharif only started to resume in the first week of July, and almost all but a few areas had normal rainfall this week. Acreage so far this season is slightly over 3.1 million acres compared to the normal 12,428 acres for the season. Rice farmers are busy cultivating nurseries under all large and medium irrigation projects. Most of them are preparing to transplant and are expected to have water until at least the end of the month. The irrigation authority is expected to soon announce the timetable for releasing water to over 1.8 million acres of ayacut under the Kaleshwaram Enhanced Irrigation Scheme.
Unless the skies open soon, rice transplants for other major irrigation projects such as the Nagarjuna Sagar project and the Srisailam project may be delayed as they have yet to receive their first inflow of water this year. With an active monsoon in the region, they are hoping for normal rains from at least the weekend onwards. So far, the state’s rice acreage is less than three to four percent of the normal season’s 4.986 million acres.
All major rice producing areas like Nalgonda and Suryapet are still awaiting the finalization of the irrigation plan for the ayacut of the Nagarjuna Sagar Left canal. Kharif’s business has gained momentum primarily in rainfed areas.
Paddy fields covered 130,000 acres as of July 5, compared to 4.986 million acres (2.8 percent) under normal conditions. Paddy fields covered approximately 2.486 million acres compared to 5.659 million acres (49.15 percent) in the normal season. Soybean coverage was 223,000 acres compared with 413,000 acres (54 percent) normal. To date, approximately 87,179 acres have been planted to corn and 1,81,087 acres to red beans.
