Unseasonal rains may hit groundnut crop

Unseasonal rains, which may affect the overall monsoon, may hit the groundnut crop of 2005 kharif season (April-September, traders and farmers said. A government research body has already forecast 12 per cent deficient rains in July.

Unseasonal showers were reported across the country for over a fortnight. The India Meteorological Department forecasts rains or thundershowers to continue this week over various parts of the country.

Farmers and traders say this is because the cooler atmosphere hits the movement of monsoon-laden winds, which generally travel from regions of lower temperature to higher.

Unseasonal rains have a cooling effect on the atmosphere and, traditionally, this has adversely affected seasonal rains, said Chander Mohan, a groundnut and mustard farmer from Rajkot.

"The kharif groundnut crop in Gujarat may be hit due to these unseasonal rains," said Pradeep Kotak, director of Kotak Agri-International.

The market was earlier forecasting 33 per cent rise in kharif groundnut crop to 2 million tonne. But now it is very difficult to forecast any likely rise in output and its quantum, Kotak added.

Due to the unseasonal rains, farmers also are confused if they should sow groundnut or shift to cotton, especially in Gujarat.

Groundnut sowing begins in Gujarat and other western states in the first week of June and in other parts of the country in the third week of June.

Further, the market is worried over the normalcy of the southwest monsoon.

Bangalore-based Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation has predicted rainfall in July to be 12 per cent below normal. July is the month when farmers undertake most of the sowing operations.

In the case of groundnut, timely rains are more important than the quantum. Thus, if July will see deficient rainfall as per the prediction, it will lead to another bad year for groundnut farmers, Govindlal G Patel of Rajkot-based Dipak Enterprise said.

Southwest monsoon in 2004 also had deficient rainfall in July and had led to 17 per cent decline in kharif groundnut crop to 4.4 million tonne.

However, the India Meteorological Department has forecast a normal monsoon this year and is likely to be 98 per cent of the long-period average. However, a clearer picture will emerge only by June.

An IMD official had Tuesday told CRISIL MarketWire that the monsoon is likely to hit the Indian coast on schedule, around June 1. Last year, the southwest monsoon was 87 per cent of the long-period average.

The long-period average rainfall, that is the average rainfall received during July-September between 1941 and 1990, is 87 centimetres.

Monsoon is vital for the economy as merely 41.4 per cent of the total sown area is under irrigation and agriculture is primarily dependent on the timeliness, quantum, and regularity of rainfall.