NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) — Plentiful monsoon rains spurred Indian farmers to plant summer crops across a record swath of farmland seven percent bigger than last year, promising a bumper harvest in Asia’s third-biggest economy, despite the rapid spread of coronavirus.
Farm ministry data shows growers sowed 267.4 million acres with crops such as rice, corn, cotton, soybeans and sugarcane.
Planting began on June 1, when monsoon rains typically hit India, where nearly half of farmland does not receive irrigation.
“We’re confident that food production will cross the target of 298.32 million tonnes in the 2020-21 crop year,” said Farm Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, praising farmers for the record acreage.
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Such a harvest would outstrip the previous year’s record output of 295.67 million tonnes.
Between the beginning of June and the end of August, farmers planted a greater acreage of every single summer crop than last year, the data showed.
Rice, the main food crop of the world’s second-most populous nation, was planted across 96.1 million acres, up from 87.4 million acres in the year-earlier period.
Oilseeds were planted across 147.6 million acres, up from 42 million acres.
Sowing of soybeans, the main summer oilseed crop, stood at 29.6 million acres, versus 27.9 million acres.
Protein-rich pulses, a staple of the Indian diet, were planted across 33.1 million acres, up from last year’s 31.9 million acres.
Corn acreage of 19.8 million acres exceeded last year’s 7. 19.5 million acres.
The farm ministry could revise its preliminary planting figures, however, as more data flows in from Indian states.
After a spell of patchy rain in the last two weeks of July, India received rainfall in August that was 24 percent above the average, a trend weather officials see as likely to run until the end of the month.
