The Centre has allayed any fear of a shortfall in the sowing of rice, the key Kharif crop, with officials from the Agriculture Ministry stating that sowing and production will not be affected negatively even if there is deficient rainfall in July.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had forecast rainfall during July at 8 per cent below the Long Period Average (LPA) of 89 cm.
Private agency Skymet has, however, predicted normal rainfall this month with its CEO Jatin Singh stating in a note that: “Our initial April forecast was 104 per cent of normal for the month. And we are sticking to that. July has a standard rainfall deviation of ± 16 per cent, and we see the cumulative rainfall for the month remaining in the same limit (84 per cent to 116 per cent of the July LPA of 289mm is normal)”.
Singh, however, did warn of a risk of prolonged dry weather in north and south interior Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and the Marathwada region.
“A long break is being feared in July. We disagree. We don’t think there is going to be a “typical” break, but we think monsoon will take a breather between the 2nd and 6th of July…the Madden-Julian Oscillation helped rainfall in June. We think it will be back in the second half of July and enhance rain over India,” he added.
Agriculture Ministry data shows Kharif sowing to be at 16.56 million hectares (mh), up 23 per cent compared to last year, mainly due to the South-West monsoon delivering 189.5 mm of rainfall, 16 per cent more than the normal average of 163.6 mm.
“There is no threat to paddy despite the below-normal forecast for July. If rainfall occurs in seven-eight day intervals, there will be no threat to the crop. There is a contingency plan in place for a weak monsoon,” said Siraj Hussain, Agriculture Secretary, on the sidelines of an Assocham event on the ‘National Agricultural Market’ here on Thursday.
While this boosted sowing of key crops such as pulses (1.1 mh) and oilseeds (2.79 mh). In percentage terms, the increases over last year are 80 per cent and 426.4 per cent, respectively. Rice acreage was down around 7 per cent at 2.33 mh.