India has comfortable seed availability for Kharif season: Govt amid West Asia crisis

The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare on Wednesday advised citizens to avoid panic purchases and assured that the government is making all efforts to ensure adequate availability of petrol, diesel and LPG, in view of the West Asia conflict.

Speaking at an inter-ministerial meeting here, a senior official of the ministry said there is comfortable seed availability for the Kharif season with requirement of 166.46 lakh quintals against availability of 185.74 lakh quintals, resulting in a surplus of around 19.29 lakh quintals.

"There is surplus position across major crops, including paddy 80.9 lakh quintals, soybean 35.7 lakh quintals, groundnut 21.1 lakh quintals, maize 11.9 lakh quintals and pulses (tur, moong, urd)," he said.

The ministry said fertiliser requirement for Kharif 2026 has been assessed at 390.54 LMT in consultation with states, against which 180 LMT (46 per cent) is available as opening stock-significantly higher than the usual pre-season level of around 33 per cent.

"States have also been requested to take up special drives so that there is no hoarding or Black marketing, or cross-border smuggling or diversion of fertiliser for non-agricultural use," it said in a statement.

It also said that supply to operating urea plants is steady at around 70–75 per cent of their last six-month average consumption.