“Rice leads cotton in major kharif crops”, reads the headlines from 2009, when acreage under white gold trailed paddy by five percent. That wasn’t the first time, though. Since 1960s (or at least since the statistical supplements of Economic Survey are available online), rice and cotton closely battled for leading share in kharif acreage, with average variance of no more than 100 hectares per annum during that period. Share of rice even overtook cotton in 1979 by no less than seven percent.
That was then. As the fruits of green revolution, enhanced command system under Indus irrigation network, and reversal of nationalisation policies took their full effect starting mid-80s, cotton became country’s leading cash crop, with area under its cultivation recording fastest growth of all major kharif crops. By 1997, difference between cotton and rice acreage peaked at 900 hectares, with average gap during 1986-97 at 640 hectares per annum.
Late 90s is also the first time when acreage under four major kharif crops (cotton, rice, cane and maize), crossed seven thousand hectares for the first time after sustained growth of nearly two decades. Acreage has comfortably stayed above that floor ever since, bottoming out once in FY11 – in the kharif season following monsoon floods of 2010 – and finally peaking in FY18 at 8,195 hectares.
Provisional numbers from statistical division suggest that FY19 has been another abysmal year for kharif crops, as total acreage has declined by 7 percent for the gang of four, blamed primarily on poor water availability. Afterall it is the lowest since FY13, back when cotton crop was still enjoying its last boom in recent memory.
But the tug and pull of the last couple of years masks another significant trend – that of the beating kharif cash crops (cotton and cane) have received at the hands of rice and maize, consistently for the past three years.
While the policymakers continue to obsess over the ‘chicken and egg problem’ – namely, whether cotton has suffered at the hands of incentivisation of cane or cane became farmers’ crop of choice because cotton was underperforming – both rice and maize have quietly beaten the Cotton-Cane-Complex for the top and third positions, respectively.
The outgoing year also record two surprises. First, the combined acreage under rice and maize exceeds acreage under cash crops by almost one-fifths. Although this is third year in a row, the quantum of difference is finally large enough this year that it can no longer be interpreted as a fluke.
Second, maize has finally beaten cane to third place, that too by no less than 20 percent. Although rice has two-thirds share within major cereal kharif crops, the growth has no doubt came on the back of maize – and a concurrent decline in both cotton and cane.
This space will aim to highlight the possible causes of the changing trends within kharif crops in a series of columns over next week – but one parting thought for policymakers: compared to cotton and cane, both rice and maize are virtually free market commodities with virtually no support or intervention by regulators. This year when myriad federal and provincial committees on agriculture put their heads together to stage an agriculture revival, maybe that’s one thought they might wish to keep with them.
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