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Upcoming rabi season likely to be challenging for rainfed areas due to El Nino: Agriculture Secretary
Sep-28-2026

Agriculture Secretary Atish Chandra has said that the upcoming rabi (winter) season is likely to be challenging for rainfed areas due to the El Nino weather pattern, and foodgrain production could be affected. He said the kharif season was also very challenging, particularly in rainfed areas. Several States struggled first to achieve crop coverage and later to ensure that the crops survived. Sowing of rabi crops such as wheat and mustard begins in October.

Chandra said some states could face the problem of excess soil moisture, while areas with deficient rainfall may see prolonged periods of stress. He added strategies need to be calibrated accordingly for the rabi season. Calling climate change a reality, he said even irrigated areas have seen untimely and heavy rain in many places, hurting crops. He noted while India has achieved self-reliance in cereals, it continues to import pulses, oilseeds and some horticulture produce such as fruits.

Rabi crops are normally sown in a total area of about 638 lakh hectares, out of which wheat is sown in 300 plus lakh hectares, pulses in 140 lakh hectares, oilseeds in 87 lakh hectares and coarse cereals in 55 lakh hectares. Chandra called for crop diversification to attain self-sufficiency, even as he acknowledged that this would involve hurdles in research practices, climate resilience and farmer incomes. Diversification, he said, must go hand in hand with sustainable agriculture, which is the government's second priority. He said initiatives such as Per Drop More Crop and soil health programmes have been rolled out, but they need to be assessed on the ground, and not merely from the point of view of subsidy disbursal. He urged state governments to focus on outcomes that improve farmers' incomes.

Chandra identified infrastructure as the third priority, and expressed concern over 'a lot of gaps' in both pre-production and post-production facilities. He stressed the need to modernise infrastructure to reduce farm losses. On market systems, he pointed out that fruits and vegetables have no procurement mechanism, yet both production and markets are expanding on the back of market-led demand. Horticulture growth is now outpacing that of cereals, pulses and oilseeds. He also said that while reforms have been made, the guardrails built around them prevent them from working in practice, and this needs to be examined.

Highlighting digital agriculture as the most important priority, Chandra said data asymmetry weakens planning. Decisions on rabi, kharif and zaid crops require accurate production and land-coverage data, along with farmer IDs. He said the farmer ID initiative is a massive undertaking that the world views as a miracle, and no other country has farmer data at this scale. He added last-mile connectivity has been lost and must be rebuilt by creating farmer IDs, linking them to land records and bringing cultivators into the system.
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