Paddy acreage deficit goes down from 15% to 6% in a span of 14 days

The saving grace is that unlike wheat, rice stocks in the central pool are much higher than required

The shortfall in the area under paddy cultivation for the week ended August 26 over the same period last year has narrowed to 5.99 per cent from 8.25 per cent in the previous week due to a pick-up in rain in West Bengal and Jharkhand.

This could ease some concern about a big drop in final output. However, a final analysis on output will be possible only when the harvest starts because much of the sowing in eastern India is happening after the ideal planting time, market participants said.

According to the latest data from the Ministry of Agriculture, during the week