New Delhi: India’s summer crop sowing is slightly below thee year ago level, with lower acreage under rice and maize offsetting the gains in pulses, agriculture and farmers welfare ministry data showed.
As on 24 March, the total sown area was at 4.27 million hectares, down from 4.37 million a year ago. The season’s sowing is still in progress. Last year, summer crop acreage totalled 8.4 million hectares.
India follows three main cropping seasons: summer, kharif and rabi. Summer cropping, also known as the ‘zaid’ season, typically runs from March to June. This period is a short window between the rabi (winter) and kharif (monsoon) seasons. Zaid crops are mainly cultivated on irrigated land, and are known for being short-duration.
Kharif crops are sown in June-July and they depend on the southwest monsoon rains, with harvest in October-November. Rabi crops, planted in October and November, are harvested by January, while summer crops are cultivated between the two seasons.
Sowing details
Summer crops’ acreage was down as to 2.78 million hectares from 2.86 million a year ago. Maize, a key coarse cereal, also recorded a sharp decline, pulling down the overall acreage under the category to 424,000 hectares, compared with 500,000 hectares a year ago.
emerged as a bright spot, with their total area rising to 409,000 hectares from 347,000 hectares. Overall acreage under coarse cereals fell to 604,000 hectares from 684,000 hectares a year ago. Green gram and black gram acreage rose, reflecting a continued shift towards short-duration and relatively low-input crops.
Oilseed acreage remained largely stable at 469,000 hectares, marginally lower than the year-ago level of 473,000 hectares, indicating limited response despite policy efforts to boost domestic production amid high import dependence.
Experts believe sowing will pick up in the coming days.
“In the coming days, sowing of summer crops is expected to pick up, and there is no reason to believe it will fall short of last year’s levels. The delay so far was due to , but activity is likely to gather pace soon,” said Sudhir Panwar, a farm expert and former member of the Uttar Pradesh Planning Commission.
Food grain stocks
India’s central pool food grain stocks remained significantly above the country’s buffer norms throughout 2025-26, reflecting a comfortable supply position, according to government data.
As of 1 January 2026, total foodgrain stocks were at 58.4 million tonnes (mt), more than double the buffer requirement of 21.41 mt.
A commodity-wise breakup shows wheat stocks were at 27.46 mt as on 1 January 2026, while rice was at 30.93 mt, the government said. Buffer norms for wheat and rice were consistently lower than the actual holdings, indicating ample availability to meet public distribution system (PDS) requirements and other welfare schemes.
A surplus stock position gives government the flexibility to manage price stability and undertake market interventions if required, though it also raises concern over storage costs and efficient stock management.