The Hindu Business Line : Deficient rains may hit cotton, oilseeds

With the south-west monsoon playing truant in June, particularly in central India and Gujarat, sowing of kharif crops has been hit. Deficient rains in the soyabean bowl of west Madhya Pradesh (MP) and the groundnut-growing areas of Gujarat mean that the commodity that could well come under the Government's scanner next — after sugar, wheat and pulses — is edible oils.

Deficient

According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the average area-weighted rainfall for the country as a whole during June 1-28 amounted to 116.2 millimetres (mm). This is 20.5 per cent below the "normal" historic long period average (LPA) of 146.2 mm for this period. That makes it a deficient monsoon so far. But more worrying is the disaggregated picture.

Out of the 36 meteorological sub-divisions, rainfall has been "deficient" (shortfall of 20 per cent or more) in 10 and `scanty' (shortfall above 60 per cent) in three others.

The scanty sub-divisions are East MP (-79 per cent), Chhattisgarh (-61) and Vidarbha (-61), while those in the deficient category include west MP (-50), Marathwada (-26), Telangana (-44) and Saurashtra & Kutch (-31). The result is lower coverage of cotton and oilseeds, especially groundnut and soyabean.

The other deficient sub-divisions are Assam & Meghalaya (-32), Arunachal (-33), Kerala (-23), coastal Karnataka (-21) and Andamans & Nicobar (-26).

Moreover, rainfall has been poor even in `normal' sub-divisions such as west Rajasthan (-18), Gujarat region (-14), Orissa (-15) and Gangetic West Bengal (-14).

South comfortable

The good news though is that much of the South (barring Telangana and Kerala) has received very good precipitation and so has the sugarcane belt of Madhya Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. There have also been decent rains in Punjab and Haryana, which augurs well for the Government's kharif paddy procurement programme.

The other source of comfort is the reservoir position. For the week ended June 23, the water level in the 76 major reservoirs, at 28.61 billion cubic meters (BCM), was 14.56 BCM more than last year's corresponding figure and 9.38 BCM higher than the average for the last 10 years.

The monsoon this time made a spectacular early entry, setting in over Kerala on May 26 against the normal arrival date of June 1. It advanced rapidly along the west coast and reached Mumbai on May 31 (10 days early) and further up to south Gujarat on June 2. Since then, it entered a `weak phase', causing moisture stress to the crop that farmers sowed following the early showers.

The IMD expects the monsoon to revive strongly over the next week, with the formation of a low pressure area over the Bay of Bengal that may concentrate into a depression. As a result, "rainfall activity over central India, Maharashtra and Telangana is likely to be fairly widespread". How much this would make up for lost sowing time remains to be seen.

Rice coverage slips

According to the Agriculture Ministry, coverage of rice is down to 28.90 lakh hectares (lh) from 30.44 lh during the corresponding period last year.

The area under coarse cereals, however, has improved, thanks to better sowing in maize and bajra to 22.99 lh from 16.98 lh. Sugarcane area is also up at 44.55 lh (42.80 lh) as also pulses at 3.38 lh (3.09 lh).

Cotton coverage is down two lh at 11.37 lh.

More Stories on : Climate & Weather | Foodgrains | Cotton | Oilseeds & Edible Oil

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