Kharif crops production may decline up to 53.3%

Mumbai: The production of coarse grains, pulses, oil seeds and sugarcane is expected to decline in the summer season of 2019-20 due to late monsoon and erratic and heavy rains later, according to a report.

In the current assessment, coarse grains, pulses, oil seeds and sugarcane have marginally pushed themselves further in the negative region with an expected decline of 14.14 per cent, 14.09 per cent, 53.31 per cent and 11.07 per cent over the last estimate, respectively, according to a report by the National Bulk Handling Corporation (NBHC).

"The monsoon rains had been 110 per cent over its long term average (LPA) with maximum in central India followed by southern Peninsula, northwest and northeast, respectively," NBHC head - Research and Development, Hanish Kumar Sinha said.

Widespread floods were seen in 13 states between late July and early August 2019, due to incessant rains which caused significant dent on the acreage and production of several kharif crops, he said.

"As per our assessment, sowing of rice and pulses has been most hit in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. After the floods receded, the sowing recovered and things started to approach to normalcy, though the entire kharif season has been delayed by about 20 to 25 days," he added.

The real deterrent for the kharif crop came with post monsoon rains, which exceeded by 32 per cent and had maximum impact in the northwest region (121 per cent excess) and the central India region (64 per cent excess).