Malaysian Palm Oil Council India

NEWS

August 01-2010

AP hopes to reap bumper grains output

With the State receiving 27 per cent more rainfall than the average, farmers in Andhra Pradesh have crossed the season's normal sown area by 13 percentage points in the kharif season. The latest figures put the total cropped area at 53.33 lakh hectares, as against the as-on-date normal area of 47.19 lakh ha, and the season normal of 78.23 lakh ha.

This is far higher than than 39.41 lakh ha in 2008 and 34.37 lakh ha in 2009.

The State, which witnessed a combination of drought and floods last year, hopes to reach the bumper food grain production of 204 lakh tonnes it achieved in 2008. Last year, production plummeted to 153 lakh tonnes.

The spread of rains is uniform in all the three regions - coastal, Rayalaseema and Telangana districts.

Rice bowl districts

The only concern, however, is that East and West Godavari districts and Krishna, considered to be the rice bowl of Andhra Pradesh, recorded discouraging levels of sowing areas. The area sown in West Godavari is at 75,511 ha as against the average of 1.45 lakh ha, registering just 57 per cent of the average, according to the data available with the Ministry of Agriculture.

The figures for East Godavari and Krishna (with averages in the bracket) are — 99,359 ha (1.75 lakh ha) and 1.21 lakh ha (1.59 lakh ha).

All the major crops, paddy, cotton, groundnut and redgram, fared better than the season averages. In the case of paddy, the area sown is 5.68 lakh ha (as on date average of 6.13 lakh ha).

The average of total area, however, is 25 lakh ha for the season. While redgram is sown in 4.56 lakh ha (3.02 lakh ha as on date average), cotton 15.17 lakh ha (9.91 lakh ha) and groundnut in 11.69 lakh ha (10.52 lakh ha). Maize, ragi, minor millets and sugarcane are sown less than the normal area.

Source : The Hindu: Business Line