India's Kharif Season Planting Ahead of 2009

VANCOUVER - Jul 17/10 - SNS -- Seeding of this year's monsoon or kharif season pulse crops is moving along at a good pace in India, with land in pulse thought to total 4.506 million hectares as of July 15, up 17.8% or 683,000 hectares from the same time last year.

The country's agriculture department noted, "Kharif sowing has picked up in different parts of the country in the last one week. . . . After a slow start, pulses sowing has also caught up."

Discussing the full range of crops, India's agriculture department said state level data reveals rice paddy has been sown in 12.478 million hectares as compared to 12.24 million on this date last year, showing an increase of 238,000 over the same period. Coarse cereals have been sown in 10.723 million hectares, about 1.2 million more as compared to last year.

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