Thanks to the progressive improvement in rainfall, especially in the southern region which was mostly rain-starved in the first half of the four-month monsoons, the kharif crop outlook has improved considerably.
With this, the market sentiment has also changed, as reflected in the softening of the prices of edible oils, especially soyabean, and several plantation crops in the past few days.
The sowing of paddy has so far been better than last season, mainly in the north. Sowing in the south is reported to have picked up now, following the monsoon revival.
However, the planting of coarse cereals, pulses and oilseeds is yet to fully recover from the setback it received due to the erratic rainfall in the first three weeks of July.
Soyabean is the only major kharif oilseed crop that has gained in area, having already been planted on 8.77 million hectares till July 31 this year, as against 7.93 million hectares covered at the same time last year. Groundnut and sunflower have been the chief victims of the poor rainfall distribution. However, the sowing of these crops is still continuing and a clearer picture would emerge later.
The main worry is regarding pulses, with the lag in planted area till July-end being as large as 2.1 million hectares. All pulse crops, including arhar (tur), urad and mung, have lost considerable area. The fear is that this shortfall may not be adequately made up despite the resurgence in the monsoon.
What is worse, the prospects of pulses production are not too good even in Myanmar, from where India sources bulk of its pulse imports. As a result, the prices of pulses could remain high in the coming months.
Among commercial crops, both cotton and sugarcane have suffered from poor sowing. While the shortfall of around one million hectares in cotton is due almost wholly to poor rains in Maharashtra and adjoining areas till the third week of July, acreage loss in sugarcane is due to both poor rains and area diversion to other crops, including paddy, because of poor price realisation in the last season.
A notable feature of cotton sowing this year is that nearly 99 per cent of the area has been planted with transgenic, pest-protected Bt-cotton hybrid seeds.
A worrisome aspect of the current monsoon season is the unsatisfactory replenishment of water in the country’s major reservoirs, especially in south India. The total water stock as on August 1 in the 81 key water reservoirs kept under regular watch by the Central Water Commission was 42 per cent short of the corresponding position last year.
| WATER STOCK IN RESERVOIRS ON JULY 31, 2008 (billion cubic metres) | ||||
|
Region | Long-term average | This year | Last year | % departure from last year |
| North India | 13.93 | 20.58 | 19.55 | 5.26 |
| Peninsular India | 37.84 | 27.91 | 63.81 | -56.26 |
| All India | 51.78 | 48.49 | 83.37 | -42.00 |
| Source: Central Water Commission | ||||
The shortfall is due chiefly to poor water recharge in the dams located in the peninsular region where the total water storage this year is less than half of the last year’s corresponding level.
But since most part of this region has received good showers in the past week to ten days and further increase in rainfall is predicted during the next week, part of the water deficit in these reservoirs is expected to be made up.
On August 1, only 45 of the total 81 reservoirs had above 80 per cent water storage and 17 others had between 50 per cent and 80 per cent storage. The concern was regarding 7 dams which had either nil or below 30 per cent water storage though 12 others were in the grey zone, being less than half–filled.
The three dams reporting nil storage were: Sriramsagar in Andhra Pradesh, Indira Sagar in Madhya Pradesh and Yeldari in Maharashtra. The four others in precarious state were: Upper Kolar and Upper Indravati in Orissa, Daniwada in Gujarat and Gima in Maharashtra.
According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the cumulative rainfall in the country as a whole between June 1 and July 30 was 436.7 mm, about 2 per cent short of the normal 446.6 mm. An idea of the skewed distribution of rainfall is understood from the fact that while the north-western region received 27 per cent excess rainfall, the south peninsula remained 20 per cent short of normal. The rainfall deficiency in the central region was 9 per cent and in the north-eastern region 3 per cent.
An update on weather issued by the IMD today warned of isolated heavy showers in Konkan, Goa, coastal Karnataka, north coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Orissa in the next 3 to 4 days. Enhanced rainfall has been predicted for Gujarat, Madhya Maharashtra, Vidarbha, Marathwada and Telengana from August 9 onwards.
