India's Pulse Area Passes 10 Million Hectares
VANCOUVER - Sep 22/14 - SNS -- Farmers in India made modest progress planting pulses during the past week, but total area remains behind last year and the recent five-year average.
By this time of year, pulse seeding is virtually complete in India, suggesting it will not match last year's totals. However, progress is better than was achieved in 2012, when they planted 10.27 million hectares of pulses during the monsoon or kharif season.
So far this year, farmers have planted 10.05 million hectares of pulses, compared to 10.498 million last year and the recent average of 10.624 million. The gap has narrowed considerably in recent weeks as farmers took advantage of improved monsoon rainfall accumulations in states which normally seed monsoon season crops later.
India's agriculture department is not optimistic area will increase substantially. Its first estimate for this year's pulse output forecast a 5.2 million metric ton (MT) crop, down 14% from last year and the smallest pulse harvest since 2009.
Only active subscribers can read all of this article.
If you are a subscriber, please log into the website.
If you are not a subscriber, click here to subscribe to this edition of the STAT website and to learn more about becoming a subscriber.
