Hot on the heels of a record rabi (winter) crop harvest earlier this year, planting of India’s 2026 rabi crops, such as wheat, barley and chickpeas, are well advanced, with the government announcing last week that it expected the final area to exceed that of the 2024 program.
The Agriculture Secretary Devesh Chaturvedi advised reporters last week, “Rabi sowing is higher than last year’s progress. There was a lot of rain. And in some areas because of the late harvesting, it’s a bit delayed. But we hope that we will cover the rabi higher than last year.”
According to the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, the final area planted to rabi crops in the 2024/25 campaign totalled 655.88 lakh hectares, or 65.588 million hectares, compared to the long-term average of 637.82 lakh hectares, or 63.782Mha.
Official planting progress data released last week put the winter crop seeded acreage as of November 21 at 30.63Mha, 3.35Mha, or 12.3 per cent ahead of the same time last year. This included a wheat area of 12.84Mha, 19.86 per cent, or 2.13Mha ahead of the planting pace at the same time in 2024. Wheat is by far the biggest rabi crop in India each season, accounting for around half of the planted acreage. Indian farmers are tipped to increase the 2025 area by at least 5 per cent from last year’s record of 34.2Mha.
With an average of 14.0Mha sown each season, pulses, collectively, account for around 22 per cent of India’s winter crop area. Chickpeas are the most significant pulse crop, with around 72 per cent of that total, followed by lentils with about 11 per cent. The government’s November 21 data put the planted pulse area at 7.34Mha, 7.6 per cent ahead of the same date last year. The pace of chickpea seeding was running 9.0 per cent ahead of 2024, while lentils were 5.2 per cent higher.
Oilseeds are also quite a significant part of the nation’s winter crop program, with an average of 8.7Mha, or more than an eighth of the annual area. Rapeseed and mustard are grouped in the data, making up more than 90 per cent of the oilseed campaign. Planting of this year’s oilseed crop is the most advanced of all categories with 7.66Mha in the ground as of November 21, 5.4 per cent ahead of the 7.27Mha that had been sown on the same date, 12 months earlier. Sowing of the rapeseed and mustard crop had reached 7.38Mha, 6.1 per cent ahead of last year’s pace.
Coarse cereal grains make up an average of around 9 per cent of the annual rabi campaign, or 5.5Mha. The total area planted to coarse grains as of Friday week ago was 1.97Mha against 1.73Mha at the same time last year. Sorghum, corn and barley account for around 97 per cent of the coarse grain program, with the pace of seeding running 6.6 per cent, 22.1 per cent and 16.6 per cent ahead of the previous corresponding period, respectively.
While rice is primarily grown in the kharif (summer) crop cycle, it does account for around 4.3Mha, or 7 per cent of the winter program. Unlike the monsoon-dependent Kharif season, rabi rice cultivation relies heavily on irrigation, as it takes place in the cooler, drier months from November through to April. Seeding of rice paddies is in its infancy, but the campaign is already 8.8 per cent ahead of the same date in 2024.
There are reportedly two primary reasons for the higher rabi coverage this year. First is the above-average soil moisture profile with the south-west monsoon continuing into October and the north-east monsoon bringing surplus rainfall until a hiatus in the first two weeks of November.
India Meteorological Department data reveal that, as of November 19, post-monsoon rainfall from October 1 was 27 per cent above normal. Rainfall registrations in the north-western part were more than double the long-term average, while in the central part it was 52 per cent higher.
The second reason is that the above-average monsoon has recharged groundwater tables and pushed water levels in the nation’s major reservoirs close to 90 per cent of their capacity. This creates certainty around the availability of irrigation water when required throughout the growing season. More than 50 per cent of India’s farming area, both rabi and kharif, is dependent on irrigation each year, with the rabi crops more heavily reliant as they are grown in the dry season.
Additionally, the higher minimum support prices (MSP) offered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government for key rabi crops and the premature completion of this year’s kharif harvest have incentivised farmers to commence the rabi program earlier and to increase the area allocated to this season’s winter cycle.
On October 1, the government announced that it had “hiked the MSP for all mandated rabi crops for the 2026-27 marketing season.” The wheat price increased 6.6 per cent to 2,585 Indian rupee per quintal (AUD443 per metric tonne), barley rose by 8.6 per cent to ₹2,150/q (AUD368/MT), chickpeas are 4 per cent higher at ₹5,875/q (AUD1006/mt), lentils received a 4.45 per cent boost to ₹7,000/q (AUD1,199/MT) and the rapeseed/mustard price jumped 4.2 per cent to ₹6,200/q (AUD1,062/MT).
Significantly higher stocks of urea at the conclusion of the kharif cropping cycle also add to grower confidence as the planting program proceeds. In early November, the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers advised that urea imports had more than doubled to 5.86 million metric tonne in the April to October period compared to only 2.47MMT in the same period last year.
“This rise in imports not only met the enhanced demand of urea during kharif 2025 but also helped to build adequate buffer stocks for the upcoming rabi season,” the ministry stated. As a result, overall urea stocks increased from 4.8MMT on October 1, to 6.8MMT by October 31.
While the 2025/26 rabi cropping campaign is certainly in its infancy, early indications suggest that India’s farmers are currently on track to meet the government’s target of 171.14MMT of foodgrain production in the winter crop cycle, including a record 119MMT of wheat, 15.9MMT of rice, 16.6MMT of pulses, 3.17MMT of nutri cereals such as millet, 14.5MMT of corn, 2.05MMT of barley, and 15.07MMT of oilseeds (including 13.9MMT of mustard).
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Written by Peter McMeekin.
