India's wheat and rice crops for the 2026/27 marketing year look strong, but corn, oilseeds and cotton have been set back by an erratic southwest monsoon that brought cumulative rainfall 13 per cent below the long-period average, according to the US Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), Rural Voice reported.
FAS projects India's wheat production at 121 million tonnes, unchanged from last month and above the previous year's 117.95 million tonnes, on a harvested area that has grown to 33.5 million hectares from 32.8 million. The average yield is put at 3.61 tonnes per hectare, helped by favourable soil moisture. Rice is projected at 147 million tonnes of milled rice from 51 million hectares, with some late-season adjustment for uneven rain in major growing states.
The other kharif crops fare worse. Corn is projected at 50 million tonnes from 14 million hectares after early dry spells and heat cut yield potential, so corn and coarse grain output are expected to fall from earlier records. Soybean output is estimated at 10.7 million tonnes from 12 million hectares, a yield of 0.89 tonnes per hectare, and total major oilseeds at about 40.7 million tonnes.
Cotton is estimated at 23.5 million 480-pound bales, 2 per cent below the previous projection, on an unchanged 11.5 million hectares and a yield of 445 kg per hectare. The crop is mostly rainfed, with central India holding about 61 per cent of the area and the south 24 per cent; late planting followed by heat stress hurt plant growth and boll formation.
Elsewhere the weather has split the world's harvests. In Mexico, heat stress linked to El Niño forced farmers to abandon more than 650,000 hectares of rainfed spring-summer corn, leaving national output at a projected 24 million tonnes. Drought in Nicaragua's Pacific Dry Corridor cut its rice estimate by 16 per cent in a month to 225,000 tonnes, and late October rains have led South African farmers to plan 12 per cent less commercial corn, shifting some land to sunflower.
Others gained. FAS raised Australia's wheat estimate to 32.5 million tonnes and rapeseed to 8.4 million tonnes after late rain in Victoria and New South Wales, and lifted Kazakhstan's wheat by 5 per cent to 15.8 million tonnes. Russia is expected to harvest 20.4 million tonnes of sunflowerseed despite slightly lower yields on a record planted area.
Photo: D.aspis9394 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Source: Rural Voice (reported by Rajasree Singh)
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