A surplus monsoon has helped to expand the area planted with key kharif or summer-sown crops but flooding in several states and scanty showers in others pose risks to farm output, analysts said.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD), the State-run weather bureau, has forecast an extended monsoon and above normal rains during September, when crops near ripening and harvesting stage.
The June-September rain-bearing season, the life-blood of Asia’s third-largest economy, was 8% above normal cumulatively as on September 2, while August recorded a nearly 16% surplus, leading to flooding.
A dent in farm output could stoke food prices, which have been elevated in the last two years due to extreme weather. Sowing of key kharif or summer-sown crops has crossed last year’s levels at 108 million hectares currently.
States such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and northeastern states, among many, expect damage to crops after heavy showers inundated fields.
Last week, Karnataka revenue minister Krishna Byre Gowda said 58 people died due to widespread flooding in the state, which had damaged crops in 80,000 hectares. “The extent of damage from floods will be only known when surveys are undertaken after flood waters recede,” said KR Gopalan, assistant director, horticulture department of Maharashtra.
Two cyclonic weather patterns are converging over central India, bringing more rains to already drenched regions, according to the IMD.
The resulting depression over eastern Vidarbha region is likely to cause “extremely heavy rainfall” over parts of Maharashtra and Gujarat, the IMD said on Monday. Heavy falls will also occur over Marathawada, Konkan and Goa, north interior Karnataka, western Madhya Pradesh and Saurashtra and Kutch regions of Gujarat during next two days, the weather bureau said.
“Delayed withdrawal of the monsoon and heavy rainfall in September could damage crops like rice, cotton, soybean, corn, and pulses by increasing moisture content in farm produce,” said TK Mani, a retired faculty of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.
The monsoon, despite being plentiful, has been skewed, resulting in deficient rainfall in states, such as Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab.
In Uttar Pradesh, out of the 75 districts, 37 have had scanty rainfall, impacting paddy, according to farmers. “My crops (paddy) don’t look very healthy and its height has gone up much. There has been very little rainfall,” said Akram Chauhan, a farmer from Shamli in western UP.
The Met department, in an advisory, has asked farmers to drain out excess water from fields and orchards in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, east Rajasthan, west Madhya Pradesh, Marathwada, Vidarbha, Madhya Maharashtra, north interior Karnataka and Telangana. Farmers have been advised to prevent long inundation in rice, castor, cotton, pearl millet, groundnut, sesame and maize fields.