The acreage of mustard/rapeseed has jumped by 21.4 per cent to 86.98 mh as on December 24 from 71.62 mh a year-ago and nearly 3 mh were covered during the past week. Agriculture scientists are now expecting the area under mustard to be around 90 mh which will be a challenge for the government to sustain unless policy intervention is placed in advance to check its price fall when the crop comes to market in March next. For 2021-22, the target was set at 75.8 mh with a production of 12.24 mt. Mustard output was 10.1 mt in 2020-21.
The total area under oilseeds has increased 19.6 per cent to 95.04 mh from 79.46 lh year-ago, mainly because of higher area under mustard. As much as 96 per cent of the normal sowing area of 625.14 mh under all rabi crops have been covered. Currently, the acreage is 600.65 mh against 593.50 mh in the year-ago period.
Winter-grown pulses were reported at 144.47 mh, which is 2.4 per cent lower than year-ago’s 147.96 mh. The season’s normal area (five-year average) is 146.14 mh whereas the acreage reached 167.38 mh last year. As the weekly increase in pulses was about 7 mh, another 20 mh may be covered.
The acreage of gram continued to be near about the same level as 102.51 mh a year ago. Last year, the total area under gram was about 112 mh. Area under masur is up 4.3 per cent 16.30 mh, while barley coverage is a tad lower at at 6.49 mh from 6.52 mh year-ago, the data show.
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