Even as the southwest monsoon prepares to leave India after giving near normal rains during the four-month monsoon season, production of some important crops like paddy, pulses, oilseeds, cotton and coarse cereals could witness a fall in this Kharif season compared to the previous one.
Officials in the agriculture department are now in the process of estimating the impact of slow start of monsoon on overall crop production during the kharif harvest season.
The southwest monsoon is now just 8% below normal, showing a remarkable turnaround from a deficit from around 20% in end July.
The first official estimate of 2012-2013 kharif output is expected to be released sometime later. In end July, agriculture secretary Ashish Bahuguna had said that deficient rains would have an impact on the kharif production. He did not quantify the loss then.
Though, the overall monsoon and sowing situation has changed dramatically since then, a renowned farm economist, who did not wish to named said there is bound to be some impact on final production of foodgrains, pulses, oilseeds and also cotton as compared to last year due to slow start and deficiency in rains in June and July.
He said production of rice, the main foodgrains sown during the kharif season could be around 4-5 million tonnes less than last year. A crop year runs from June to July.
Expected fall in kharif production in FY2013 due to uneven rains (in mn tonne)
| CROPS | 2011-2012* | 2012-2013** | Expected drop in output |
| Rice | 91.5 | 82-83 | 8.5-9.5 |
| Coarse cereals | 32.2 | 29-28 | 3.2-4.2 |
| Pulses | 0.93 | 0.57 | 0.36 |
| Total foodgrains | 130 | 118-116 | 12-14 |
| Oilseeds | 20.7 | 20.2 | 0.5 |
Note: The govt's own official production estimate for this kharif season has not been released yet.
*Actual production as per fourth advanced estimate of 2011-2012 crop season released by agriculture department in July
** Estimated drop in production because of uneven rains in 2012
SOURCE: Traders, market analysts and economists
In 2011-2012 kharif season, India produced a record 91.53 million tonnes of rice. This year till last Friday, the overall acreage in paddy is around 1.57 million hectares less than 2011-2012.
Assuming an average per hectare yield rice at 2.5 tonnes per hectare, straightaway, 4 million tonnes output is lost. “Though, there would be some improvement in acreage in the coming weeks, but it is very unlikely that the entire loss in area would be recouped,” a senior official from the ministry said.
He said the standing paddy crop which has been sown in around 35 million hectares till September 7, won’t give the same yield as it would have given if rains were to be normal.
“In that case another 5-7% would be lost from the standing crop itself which translates into a drop in production of 4.5 million tonnes in rice,” he explained.
In coarse cereals, the area unsown till last week is around 2.18 million hectares. Assuming an average yield of 1.5 tonnes per hectare, the total output is expected to fall by around 3.3-3.5 million tonnes as compared to last year.
In 2011-2012, India produced around 32.2 million tonnes of coarse cereals during the kharif season. “In coarse cereals, some items like maize give a per hectare average yield of 2 tonnes, while sorghum gives much less, but for the sake of calculating we take it as 1.5 tonnes,” the economist said.
