NEW DELHI (Commodity Online): India’s key rice producing states’ farmers switched to premium basmati rice, attracting lesser requirements of water and late sowing facility coupled with high export demand.

Punjab and Haryana, the major rice producing regions in the country, have been suffering with meager monsoon rains in the current season.

Basmati, which has been exempted from India's rice export ban, brings higher returns, requires lesser water and can be sown late, attracting farmers in the two states that account for over 70 % of India's output of the aromatic, long-grain staple.

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Rice had been transplanted on 750,000 hectares out of the targeted 1.15 million hectares in Haryana, and in 2.27 million hectares out of the expected 2.6 million hectares in Punjab.