The area under oilseeds in India, to be harvested in the summer months, has shown a marked rise over a year ago mainly because of increased sowing of rapeseed and sunflower, the farm ministry said on Tuesday.
Apart from rapeseed/mustard and sunflower, groundnut, safflower, sesame and linseed are the other oilseed crops sown in November and harvested in the summer months of March and April. The farm ministry said oilseeds had so far been sown over 8.92 million hectares this season, up from 8.59 million a year ago.
The main summer crop, rapeseed/mustard, has seen a sharp increase in area coverage this year to 6.73 million hectares from 6.24 million last summer while sunflower has been grown over 1.04 million hectares, slightly higher than 995,000 hectares covered by the crop last summer.
"The area coverage under rapeseed and mustard is more than the coverage of the corresponding period of last two years and also more than the normal area coverage," the ministry said in a statement.
India, the world's leading edible oils importer, has been encouraging farmers to move away from cultivating grains to oilseeds, by offering better procurement prices.