Glacier FarmMedia – India may be looking at a record large red lentil crop in 2023/24, although poor monsoon rains are expected to cut into total pulse area and production, according to reports out of the country.
India is currently seeding the last of its 2023/24 rabi season crop. While planting operations typically finish up in December, the delayed onset the northeast monsoon slowed the harvest of the earlier kharif crop and shortened the rabi season planting window, according to a report from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Mumbai attaché. Cumulative rainfall during the monsoon was nine per cent lower than the 50-year average, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
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“Timely October rains are important during the sowing of the primary rabi crops, and deficit rains negatively affected the pace of planting and production estimates,” said the USDA attaché.
As of Jan. 19, an estimated 15.51 million hectares of rabi season pulses were seeded in India, which was down by 7.5 per cent from the same time the previous year, according to a report from India’s Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.
Of that total, chickpea area was down by 6.8 per cent, at 10.29 million hectares, with the window for seeding the crop said to be almost over in most major producing states.
However, after chickpeas, lentils are the largest pulse crop grown in India and plantings were running well ahead of average. Lentil area in the country came in at 1.95 million hectares as of Jan. 19, which compares with the average of 1.44 million hectares and the year-ago level of 1.85 million hectares.
“This year, masur (red lentil) production is going to be at an all-time high. Our masur production will be the highest in the world. The acreage has increased. The dynamic is changing,” said India’s Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh at a recent event organised by the Global Pulse Confederation (GPC).
India grew 1.56 million tonnes of red lentils in 2022/23, according to government data.
— Phil Franz-Warkentin is an associate editor/analyst with MarketsFarm in Winnipeg.
