Deficient distribution

Lower rainfall in some regions will affect rice output

About 8 per cent excess rainfall during the first half of the current monsoon season, as has been the case this year, should normally be viewed as a reassuring factor for crop prospects and economic outlook. However, this is not precisely so this time because the rainfall, despite being copious, has been quite patchy in terms of both time and space. The major rice-growing tracts in the east and northeast, including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, have remained highly rain-deficient. The lag in paddy sowing, estimated at over 13 per cent till now, is hard to make up because the rainfall in August and September is also predicted by the India Meteorological Department to be below-average in this zone.

Besides, the main paddy sowing season, the month of July, is already over and the late planted crop cannot be expected to deliver normal yields. The upside, however, is that the anticipated shortfall in rice production, which many believe could be as high as 10 million tonnes compared to the last kharif season’s rice output of 111 million tonnes, might not matter much, given the expected huge carryover inventories. The government’s rice coffers are said to be brimming over, holding more than twice the quantity needed to be kept as buffer and strategic reserves. Although rice prices have increased, the planting of most other crops has gone on smoothly across the country, including the rain-starved eastern region. The acreage under important crops like cotton, soybean, some pulses, and staple vegetables like onion and tomato, is reported to have expanded. That can have a salubrious impact on agri-inflation.

The incidence of pest infestation and disease has, by and large, also remained low, except in the case of the whitefly attack on cotton in the northern states and on coconut in Tamil Nadu. Moreover, satisfactory replenishment of water in most reservoirs is another comforting feature that bodes well for crop irrigation and hydel power production even in the post-monsoon season. The total water stock in the 143 major reservoirs, monitored regularly by the Central Water Commission, was about 23 per cent higher than the last year’s storage and 39 per cent above normal in mid-July. It must have gone up further as the monsoon gathered momentum in the latter half of the month.

Yet, there is another significant downside that cannot be disregarded. According to private weather forecasters, as also some foreign weather agencies, the monsoon rainfall in the second half of the season (August-September) could be influenced to a significant extent by two vital global meteorological phenomena— La Nina and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). While La Nina (cooling of ocean waters along the west coast of South America) is projected to remain favourable for the Indian monsoon till the end of the season, despite being in a waning phase, the IOD (irregular oscillations in sea surface temperature in western Indian Ocean) is anticipated to turn detrimental to it. The monsoon would, therefore, have to contend with these two conflicting forces. If it manages to withstand these divergent pulls, which is what most weather forecasters expect, the country could see normal rains till the end of the season.