Photo courtesy: PickPic
New Delhi: India’s Rabi sowing has gathered strong pace this season, with the total area under cultivation reaching 208.19 lakh hectares as of November 11, significantly higher than 188.73 lakh hectares recorded during the same period last year according to the figures released by the Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare on Monday, indicating promising prospects for the 2025-26 agriculture cycle.
Among the major crops, wheat has shown the most notable progress, with the area sown rising to 66.23 lakh hectares, an increase of 9.68 lakh hectares over last year. Rice also inched up, covering 7.44 lakh hectares, up by 0.62 lakh hectares.
A remarkable surge has been witnessed in pulses, with the coverage touching 52.82 lakh hectares compared to 48.93 lakh hectares a year ago — an overall increase of 3.88 lakh hectares.
Within pulses, gram occupies the largest share at 37.43 lakh hectares, rising by 3.39 lakh hectares. It is followed by lentil at 6.83 lakh hectares, increasing by 0.74 lakh hectares, and field pea at 4.75 lakh hectares, up by 0.51 lakh hectares. Kulthi has maintained last year’s level with 0.97 lakh hectares, showing no change. Other pulses saw mixed movements: urad stands at 0.79 lakh hectares, down by 0.19 lakh hectares, moong at 0.05 lakh hectares, decreasing by 0.04 lakh hectares, and lathyrus at 1.04 lakh hectares, down by 0.13 lakh hectares. The category of other pulses recorded a decline to 0.95 lakh hectares, lower by 0.41 lakh hectares.
Growth trends are also visible in ‘Shri Anna’ & coarse cereals, which expanded to 15.53 lakh hectares from 13.50 lakh hectares, marking an improvement of 2.04 lakh hectares. Among them, jowar reached 8.82 lakh hectares, bajra 0.04 lakh hectares, ragi 0.49 lakh hectares, small millets 0.11 lakh hectares, maize 4.26 lakh hectares, and barley 1.83 lakh hectares, each registering incremental gains over the previous year.
Meanwhile, oilseeds have crossed 66.17 lakh hectares, up from 62.93 lakh hectares, with a cumulative rise of 3.24 lakh hectares. The increase is largely driven by rapeseed and mustard, which alone accounts for 64.23 lakh hectares, higher by 3.71 lakh hectares from last year. Smaller contributions came from other subsectors, including safflower, sunflower and sesamum, although groundnut and linseed recorded slight declines.
With a net expansion of 19.46 lakh hectares across all crops, the early rabi sowing trend reflects strong agricultural momentum across the country. The substantial rise in wheat, pulses and oilseeds acreage is expected to strengthen food grain availability and improve farm income projections for the current agricultural year.