Short Chickpea Crop in Rajasthan

NEW DELHI - Dec 22/09 - SNS -- Chickpea or gram seedings in Rajasthan will likely end up falling 14% below last year because of a slow start to planting this year's crop and poorer water availability than farmers like to see when growing the crop, according to state agriculture officials.

They say planting progress was running 150,000 hectares behind last year's pace as of December 22, with about 900,000 hectares of gram sown.

Despite the slower progress in Rajasthan, seeding of this year's rabi season gram crop is running about 6.1% ahead of last year in all producing states. As of December 17, area in gram totalled 7.7 million hectares, up from 7.26 million by the same time last year.

Rajasthan is considered India's third largest chickpea producing state and accounts for between 14% and 20% of India's annual pulse harvest. Madhya Pradesh is the most important chickpea producing region, accounting for 45% of the crop, with Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh the other two major chickpea producing states.