India Data Book

Last update: August 2025

This page contains information about some of the data available in the FEWS NET Data Explorer (FDE) for India. This is not a comprehensive guide.

For information about using the filters and fields for specific domains in the FDE, see Choose a Data Domain.

Summary table

Country food security context

Statistical reporting units

India usually uses administrative units as their statistical reporting units.

Administrative (admin) units are the geographical areas into which a country is divided. FEWS NET uses the following terminology: National boundary = admin 0, First sub-national division = admin 1 (e.g., states in the United States), Second sub-national division = admin 2 (e.g., counties in the United States), and so on.

Admin 1: State or Union territory

Admin 2: Division

Admin 3: District

Admin 4: Sub-district (referred to as tehsils in northern India and taluks in southern areas)

Admin 5: Block

Admin 6: Village

Note that some districts share the same names as others in different states/territories, meaning that all of our Admin 2 district names include a two-character parenthetical state abbreviation as part of their name to distinguish them accurately.

Crop data

Explore our crop data.

View our documentation on using the Crop Domain.

Crop estimate data sources

India’s crop statistics can be found via the Directorate of Economics and Statistics, in the Indian Ministry of Agriculture. The source of most of FEWS NET’s pre-2020 crop statistics is the District-Wide Crop Production Statistics section of the Crop Production Statistics Information System. A newer official data portal is now replacing this one. It contains the most recent crop estimate data for 2020-21 and 2021-22. Between both, district-level crop data is available for all districts in the 1997 to 2022 time-period. There is data on 54 crops with production coming from the Autumn, Kharif, Rabi, Summer and Winter seasons (no Spring crops), and for the Crop year.

A third primary source of Indian crop statistics in the FEWS NET Data Platform is the District-Level Database originally compiled by the International Center for Research in the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), which was supported by a collaborative project between ICRISAT and the Tata Cornell Institute of Agriculture and Nutrition. The crop statistics contained in the ICRISAT database cover the period between 1966 and 2017 and were compiled from official crop statistics sources. From this database, FEWS NET has extracted the 1990-1996 crop statistics to extend our holdings.

Note that additional 1966 to 1989 ICRISAT-sourced crop statistics are available. These have, however, been identified as apportioned from the original Indian source data by ICRISAT. According to ICRISAT the purpose of apportionment is: “To ensure continuity in the database for time series analysis and for spatial and temporal analysis using GIS maps.... [using a] methodology ... for apportioning the data of the newly formed districts back to its parent district, i.e., 1966 district boundaries”. A description of the apportionment is available in the FEWS NET Supporting Documents. Due to the apportionment transformations present in these data, they require careful use in concert with the other Indian crop data and are available in the FEWS NET Data Platform only as an alternate, user-selected option.

Crop reporting units

Indian crop statistics in the FEWS NET Data Platform are identified using a two-level set of “Crop Reporting” unit identifiers (see FNIDs) of the following structure:

• Crop Reporting unit 1, often similar to the Admin 1 “State/Union Territory”.

• Crop Reporting unit 2, often similar to the Admin 3 “District”.

FEWS NET uses “Crop Reporting” unit identifiers (see FNIDs) when some or all of a country’s crop statistics are not reported using the country’s administrative unit hierarchy. In India, there are a total of 36 Admin 1 “states/union territories” but only 21 of them have an Admin 2-level of administrative units. All 36 nevertheless do have an Admin 3-level “district” administrative unit. The country’s crop statistics are therefore reported by the Admin 1 and Admin 3 reporting units, and FEWS NET converts these into level 1 and level 2 “Crop Reporting Units”. Note that level 2 Crop Reporting units generally sum up to level 1 Crop Reporting units.

In the FEWS NET Data Platform, there are approximately 48 uniquely-named Admin 1 states and territories in India. Several of these have changed their names and/or shapes over the period of time represented by the crop data in the FEWS NET Data Platform. Over the same period, there has been an increasing number of districts (400 to ~800) as they have been sub-divided over time.

While the number of districts has significantly increased by sub-dividing districts, there have been very few merges of reporting unit entities over this same time period; almost all shape changes have been what FEWS NET refers to as splits (one district cut into several new districts). Of the merges (two or more districts becoming one district), several have been temporary reverses of immediately preceding splits. These temporary merges were short enough that they seem not to have been reflected in the country’s statistical reporting and have been ignored in our crop statistics.

Indian crop data sources attribute current district names to many districts which have subsequently been renamed following splits, merges, and other causes. In order to maintain a link with the exact locations of previous production estimates, FEWS NET constructs a relationship table of reporting entity changes over time, and attributes production to the name of the entity at the time of production. The FEWS NET Relationship Table provides the temporal, hierarchical, and genealogical links necessary to translate backwards or forwards into the desired spatial cohort of districts for specific years. 

Year and season definitions

The timing of planting, harvesting and other phenological crop stages varies widely in this very large country between states, crops, micro-climate zones, and production systems.

Year definitions

The annual crop year reporting period is identified by the Indian Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare as June 1 through May 31. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation National Sample Survey Office, Agricultural Statistics Headquarters notes that “the reference period for a survey is the Agricultural Year (July to June), e.g. year 2019-20 is July 2019 to June 2020”.

Generally, when referring to a crop year described with a single year attribution (eg. 2017), the intended meaning is the crop year beginning in 2017 and ending in 2018 (start-aligned definition). Not infrequently, the same 2017 crop year might be referred to with a two-year attribution (e.g. 2017/2018), meaning that the Autumn, Kharif, Winter and Rabi season crops are planted in the first 7 months of the first year (eg. 2017) and Spring and Summer crops are planted in the first 5 months of the second year (eg 2018).

Season definitions

The seasonal order within the year and general timing (it varies by location) of the sowing of each of the crop seasons in the annual Indian cropping year is defined by the Ministry of Agriculture as:

• Kharif: June 1-September 30

• Autumn: September 1-October 31

• Rabi: October 1- January 31

• Winter: December 15-March 15

• Spring: January 1-April 30

• Summer: March 15-May 31)

Like sowing periods, harvesting occurs at slightly different times across the country:

• Kharif: September-December

• Rabi: December-March

• Spring/Summer: March-June

The challenge for documenting Indian crop production is finding a happy medium in how much seasonal timing information to attach to each crop, in each state. Too much may suggest, in effect, a false precision and complicate understanding of seasonal patterns in India. Too little may mislead users who want to broadly compare crop phenological stages and outcomes with earth observation measurements.

Dominant crop production systems

India’s district-level crop statistics are not identified in source documents by production system codes (e.g. irrigated, commercial, greenhouse, etc.). Rainy-season crops may be assumed to be mostly rain-fed and dry season crops as irrigated/moisture supplemented in some form. However, given the diversity of local conditions found across the country’s grand expanse, this may simply add noise to crop performance analysis.

Crop statistics methodology

A description of Indian crop estimate methods is found on the Government of India Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation website and in the FEWS NET Supporting Documents.