NEW DELHI (Commodity Online): The delayed monsoon rains have severely affected India’s rice sowing but the government is eyeing on wheat to offset the losses by increasing its productivity in 2009-10 Kharif season.

Indian government has set a record target of 84 million tonnes of during 2009-10 season as against the bumper production of 80.58 million tonnes of wheat in 2008-09 season.

“We have targeted a 28 million hectares of area under wheat production in the coming Rabi season with a productivity of the three tonnes per hectare”, said Agriculture Commissioner, N B Singh.



Area under wheat last year stood at 27.5 million hectares whereas the current productivity level is 2.7 tonnes per hectares, he added. The government plans to supply DBW 17 variety of wheat in Punjab instead of PBW 343 variety, which is susceptible to rust, Singh said.

The Commissioner said area under rice in the Kharif season may be 4.5-5 million hectares less compared to last year due to lower acreage in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar which have been affected by drought. Area under rice as of today is 30.22 million hectare s as compared to 36.58 million hectares in the year-ago period, Singh said.

The total area under rice was 40.64 million hectares last year. Rice sowing will continue in Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal till September 15,'' he said, adding this would reduce the overall deficit that currently stands at 6.3 million hectare.

Meanwhile, Agriculture Commissioner said that India’s summer-sown rice area was at 30.2 million hectares so far this year, compared with 36.8 million hectares a year ago.

“The overall situation seems to be improving...there have been very good rains, especially in drought affected areas from which the standing crop will get a lot of advantage,” N.B. Singh said.

He said India’s annual monsoon rains were 22% below normal during June 1-Sep. 3.

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