What should the government do? It can wait and watch, but certainly plan.
Kharif plantings are still to really take off, partly reflected in the Agriculture Ministry not releasing data on the area sown under different crops so far. The reason is the poor progress of the southwest monsoon, despite its arrival over Kerala and northeast India on May 30, two days and six days before their respective normal dates. The country received 3 per cent overall surplus rains till June 10. But the monsoon hasn’t advanced much thereafter, with the all-India area-weighted rainfall during June 1-23 being 18.1 per cent below the historical average for this period. Also, while the southern peninsula has recorded a cumulative surplus of 10.5 per cent, the rains have been 25 per cent deficient in central and 58.2 per cent in northwest India. The Met department expects the countrywide rainfall for June now to be “below normal” (less than 92 per cent of the long period average), a downgrade from its “normal” (92-108 per cent range) forecast issued on May 27.
That isn’t a great start to the monsoon season (June-September). Nor is it what a government beginning a fresh term would like — at a time of elevated retail food inflation (8.7 per cent year-on-year in May) and rural consumption under continuing stress. The monsoon will, hopefully, revive by the month-end. June, in any case, accounts for hardly 19 per cent of the season’s total rainfall. The bulk of it happens in July (32 per cent) and August (29 per cent); these are also the peak months for the sowing and vegetative growth phase of the kharif crops. Most global weather models are pointing to the development of La Niña conditions during July-September and persisting through November-February. La Niña is known to bring copious rains to India and also colder and prolonged winters, which are good for both the kharif and the succeeding rabi crops. This is opposite of the just-ended El Niño, which contributed to last year’s patchy monsoon and hotter temperatures in the months that followed.
What should the government do? It can wait and watch, but certainly plan. Some of the measures it has taken — allowing import of most pulses and edible oils at zero/low duty — are sensible. So is the hike in the minimum support prices of kharif pulses and oilseeds announced last week. These send the right signals to farmers to plant more area under these crops. But the government needs to also scrap the 40 per cent import duty on wheat, considering its own 16-year-low stocks and uncertainty over the next paddy crop. While the immediate focus has to be on augmenting domestic availability — preferably through freeing imports than curbs on exports and the trade — this is also the time to draw a long-term plan for the agriculture sector.
