Hyderabad: Erratic rainfall over the past few months adversely impacted agriculture in the state, with the sown area during the kharif season declining by nearly 6.5 lakh acres in comparison to last year, according to an agriculture department report.
Heavy rains followed by a monsoon-delay lull and return of heavy rains have played havoc.
While the southwest monsoon is set to withdraw, the kharif crop sown area fell to 1.25 crore acres this year, against 1.32 crore acres in 2022. However, paddy cultivation area remained at similar levels, at 44.22 lakh acres, the highest among all other crops.
According to the report submitted by the agriculture department to the state government, the total crop sown area in kharif in Telangana as of September 20 stood at 1,25,77,607 acres against 1,32,25,878 last year, a decline of 6,48,271 acres.
The report states that the state received deficit rainfall in June, ‘large excess’ rainfall in July, ‘large deficit’ rainfall in August and ‘excess’ rainfall in September.
“This erratic rain pattern led to heavy rains and floods in several districts in July and September inundating and damaging crops in lakhs of acres. The deficit rainfall in June and August also resulted in withering of standing crops in several districts,” it stated.
Going by the numbers, farmers continued to prefer paddy over other crops in kharif this year. Paddy was sown on 64,22,148 acres this year, higher than last year’s 64,07,560 acres.
The second preferred crop was cotton, which was sown in 45,03,327 acres. But, it was lower than last year’s sown area of 49,96,272 acres.
Despite the decline in total crop sown area this kharif, it remained above normal, pegged at 1,24,28,723 acres for kharif.
The normal area as of September 22 should be 1,20,50,254 acres. However, the total crop sown area as of September 22 stands at 1,25,77,607 acres, which is 1.2 per cent higher.
However, the sown area of pulses in kharif came down significantly. Red gram was sown in 4,73,662 acres against 5,61,729 acres last year. Similarly, the green gram crop-sown area came down to 55,719 acres from 66,846 acres last year. Black gram sown area fell to 20,014 acres from 29,350 acres last year.
This monsoon, Hyderabad was among 17 districts that received excess rainfall, along with Sangareddy, Medak, Rangareddy and Medchal, on the city's borders. Other districts to have received excess rainfall were Nirmal, Nizamabad, Peddapalli, Kamareddy, Siddipet, Karimnagar, Rajanna Sircilla, Jagtial, Vikarabad, Hanmakonda, Jangaon, Jayashankar Bhupalapally and Medak, according to the report.
The other 16 districts received normal monsoons. No district was in the deficit.
Farmers completed the sowing of rainfed crops like jowar, bajra, maize, ragi, pulses, groundnut, soybean and cotton by August and paddy transplanting was completed in the fourth week of this month, the report stated.
A kharif round-up:
1.25 crore acres is the sown area this kharif
6.5 lakh acres decrease from 2022 kharif
Irregular rainfall cited as main reason
64.22 lakh is paddy-sown area, the highest
45.03 lakh is cotton-sown area, the second-highest
Pulses cultivation down from last year
Despite dip, the sown area was higher than normal (1.2 cr acres)
