Rainfall for the country as a whole during the second half of the monsoon — August and September — will be 100 per cent of the long-period average (LPA), with an error margin of 8 per cent.

Stating this, the weather office has retained its forecast for August at 99 per cent of the LPA as assessed in its second long-range forecast, in June.

The seasonal forecast (June to September), too, has been retained as likely to be normal (96 per cent to 104 per cent of the LPA of 89 cm).

The latest forecasts confirm the good tidings for farmers in terms of the outlook for what looks like a record kharif season.

This is, however, without accounting for exceptions such as those in evidence in the poor run of the monsoon in the southern parts of the Peninsula. The rains have been mostly normal to above normal in the farming heartland to the north of the country.

Agriculture Secretary Shobhana K Pattanayak has said that the kharif foodgrain output is likely to surpass last year’s record of 138.04 million tonnes due to higher acreage and good rains for the second straight year.

Deficit in the South

Until last week, farmers had sown kharif crops on 878.23 lakh hectares as against 855.85 lakh hectares in the year-ago period, according to the Agriculture Ministry’s latest data.

While there were floods in some states, there was a drought-like situation in parts of Karnataka. Kerala, too, features a deficit, as do Marathawada, Vidarbha, West Uttar Pradesh, and Assam & Meghalaya.

There has still been close to a 3 per cent jump in the acreage under kharif crops so far across the country.

Recently, the Reserve Bank of India expressed satisfaction over what it described as a good monsoon and its implications for the crop production targets for 2017-18.

In its recent monetary policy statement, the apex bank said that overall, these developments should help achieve higher crop production targets than in the previous year.

A normal and well-distributed monsoon for the second consecutive year has brightened the prospects of agricultural and allied activities and rural demand, it said.

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