India's Pulse Seeding Momentum Lost

VANCOUVER - Dec 8/06 - SNS -- India's initial enthusiasm for pulses has lost momentum the last two weeks and may not result in a significant increase in plantings over last year.

The latest seeding progress reports from India's agriculture department reveal that as of December 7, farmers have planted 10.696 million hectares of pulses.

Area remains ahead of last year, but the margin of change has consistently declined in recent weeks -- sinking from 10% higher on November 30 to 1.3% higher last week to just 0.7% ahead of the 10.62 million hectare sown by this time last year.

The largest gross increase is in chickpea or gram, with seedings finishing the week at 6.586 million hectares,m up 4.8% from 6.284 million at this time last year and 6.196 million at this point in 2004. The largest percentage gainer is horsegram, up 24.7%; while lentil area is down 14.6% from last year and peas down 17.4%.

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