India's Import Needs Limited

PANAMA - Jul 23/19 - SNS -- India's government is optimistic total food grain production across the 2019-20 production cycle will match last season, but it seems likely that pulse output will drop from 24.2 million metric tons (MT) to around 22.6 million.

All the decline is currently expected in pulses. This year's kharif season planting got off to a slow start because of well below normal monsoon rainfall in June.

Land in all crops is down 7% from last year as of July 19, but land in pulses was down 16% from last year at 6.2 million hectares. That is well below the recent average of 7.63 million hectares sown by the middle of the month.

July is the most important month for planting kharif season crops. Normally, 62% of all that will be planted in sown during the month, bringing average seeding progress to 74% complete by the end of July. On average, farmers plant 22% of all pulses in August and another 4% in September. If rains are good through the balance of July and into August, the proportion of this year's kharif pulse crops sown in August is likely to be above average.

However, the more farmers plant in August, the longer the harvest takes, delaying seeding of the coming rabi season pulse crop. On average, November is the most important month for planting rabi season pulses, with an average 48% sown that month, followed by 31% in December and 10% in January. Farmers generally finish planting 9% of all pulses in October and the final 2% in February.