Facing the El Nino threat

The resilience of Indian agriculture to weather shocks has strengthened, but mitigating risks requires careful policy response

Indian agriculture has done well with an average annual growth rate of 4.4 per cent in the past six years, including the pandemic years. It recorded a growth rate of 4 per cent in FY23 and 5.5 per cent in Q4 of FY23. A good monsoon during the past four years (2019-22) has been largely attributed to the La Nina (means “little girl” in Spanish) effect, which is associated with copious rains in India. It looks like this fortunate pattern may come to an end and we may transit to El Nino (means “little boy” in Spanish) event this year if forecasts are correct. El Nino leads to abnormal warming of surface waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean and is likely to bring less rain to India. Although one prefers the “little girl” (La Nina) to the “little boy” (El Nino), the latter may win this year and could impact India’s rainfall.