AGL 40.44 Increased By ▲ 0.44 (1.1%)
AIRLINK 127.32 Increased By ▲ 0.28 (0.22%)
BOP 6.61 Decreased By ▼ -0.06 (-0.9%)
CNERGY 4.53 Increased By ▲ 0.02 (0.44%)
DCL 8.60 Increased By ▲ 0.05 (0.58%)
DFML 41.85 Increased By ▲ 0.41 (0.99%)
DGKC 87.93 Increased By ▲ 1.08 (1.24%)
FCCL 32.80 Increased By ▲ 0.52 (1.61%)
FFBL 65.01 Increased By ▲ 0.21 (0.32%)
FFL 10.32 Increased By ▲ 0.07 (0.68%)
HUBC 109.55 Decreased By ▼ -0.02 (-0.02%)
HUMNL 14.81 Increased By ▲ 0.13 (0.89%)
KEL 5.12 Increased By ▲ 0.07 (1.39%)
KOSM 7.55 Increased By ▲ 0.09 (1.21%)
MLCF 41.73 Increased By ▲ 0.35 (0.85%)
NBP 59.70 Decreased By ▼ -0.71 (-1.18%)
OGDC 194.98 Increased By ▲ 4.88 (2.57%)
PAEL 28.28 Increased By ▲ 0.45 (1.62%)
PIBTL 7.81 Decreased By ▼ -0.02 (-0.26%)
PPL 152.45 Increased By ▲ 2.39 (1.59%)
PRL 26.88 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
PTC 16.21 Increased By ▲ 0.14 (0.87%)
SEARL 86.02 Increased By ▲ 0.02 (0.02%)
TELE 7.60 Decreased By ▼ -0.11 (-1.43%)
TOMCL 35.50 Increased By ▲ 0.09 (0.25%)
TPLP 8.14 Increased By ▲ 0.02 (0.25%)
TREET 16.15 Decreased By ▼ -0.26 (-1.58%)
TRG 52.95 Decreased By ▼ -0.34 (-0.64%)
UNITY 26.74 Increased By ▲ 0.58 (2.22%)
WTL 1.25 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.79%)
BR100 9,953 Increased By 69.4 (0.7%)
BR30 30,951 Increased By 350.6 (1.15%)
KSE100 93,879 Increased By 523.1 (0.56%)
KSE30 29,091 Increased By 160 (0.55%)

Planting of major summer-sown crops, including rice, oilseeds and cotton, is progressing well as crucial monsoon rains advance across western India, government officials and traders said on Friday.
In India, which has two crop cycles, summer farm products are sown in June and harvested from October. Sowing for winter crops starts in October and the harvest takes place from March. "The beginning is very good and if the monsoon progresses as it has been, we will have good and satisfactory planting in the current season," Agriculture Commissioner N.B. Singh said.
He told Reuters sowing was picking up in western parts of the country, where annual June-September monsoon rains were falling. A Farm Ministry statement on Friday said so far rice has been transplanted over 2.31 million hectares (ha), corn sown over 478,000 ha and cotton on 1.52 million ha. It said oilseed had been sown over 452,000 ha, including 253,000 ha under groundnut and 24,000 ha under soybean.
The monsoon is vital to the health of India's trillion dollar economy as it determines farm output and subsequent rural demand for a range of products. Only 40 percent of cultivable land is irrigated. "Although we are happy that sowing operations are not delayed, it is too early to gauge acreage," Singh said.
Farmers planted rice over 1.16 million ha between May 1-June 15 against 1.07 million ha a year ago, officials said. Cotton sowing is up at 1.52 million ha from 1.47 million ha last year. Sugarcane, with 4.4 million ha sown, covered more than half of cultivated land.

Copyright Reuters, 2007

Comments

Comments are closed.