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Area sown to wheat has increased 1.40 per cent to 337.18 lakh hectare so far in the ongoing rabi season of the 2022-23 crop year (July-June), according to the agriculture ministry data released on Friday.
Sowing of wheat, the main rabi (winter) crop, had begun in October, and harvesting will start from March/April.
Farmers had sown wheat on 332.52 lakh hectare (ha) area in the year-ago period.
Higher acreage has been reported from Uttar Pradesh (2.92 lakh ha), Rajasthan (2.52 lakh ha), Maharashtra (1.01 lakh ha), Bihar (0.81 lakh ha), Chhattisgarh (0.65 lakh ha), Gujarat (0.54 lakh ha), West Bengal (0.09 lakh ha), Jammu & Kashmir (0.07 lakh ha) and Assam (0.03 lakh ha), it showed.
The higher acreage, if good weather conditions prevail during the grain-filling stage, would lead to a new record production of 112 million tonne this year, according to official sources.
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Last year, wheat production had declined to 106.84 million tonne due to heat wave in key growing states. Before that in the 2020-21 crop year, the country had achieved a record wheat output of 109.59 million tonne.
As per the data, paddy has been grown on 6.60 lakh ha more area at 26.22 lakh ha till January 13 of the ongoing rabi season. This is likely to offset the losses incurred in the kharif (winter) season of this year due to unseasonal rains and drought in some parts of the country.
In case of pulses, the total acreage has increased marginally to 161.09 lakh ha so far this rabi season as against 159.44 lakh ha in the year-ago period. Area under gram remains slightly lower at 109.56 lakh ha.
Area under nutri-cum-coarse cereals has increased to 50.02 lakh ha as against 47.71 lakh ha in the year-ago period. In case of oilseeds, the acreage has increased to 107.52 lakh ha till January 13 of this rabi season as against 99.65 lakh ha in the year-ago period.
Among oilseeds, rapeseed/mustard area remains higher at 96.85 lakh ha in the period. Total area covered under all rabi crops remained higher by 23.08 lakh ha at 682.02 lakh ha as against 658.94 lakh ha in the year-ago period.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
