By Ratnajyoti Dutta
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's worst monsoon season in five years ended on Tuesday and despite a large rainfall deficit, a delayed finish is expected to improve soil moisture and sowing prospects for winter crops.
The summer grain harvest in one of the world's leading consumers and producers is forecast to be lower than last year's due to a weak start of the June-September monsoon rain season.
But the harvest will be enough to allow the government to continue unrestricted grain exports and to rein in food prices in the world's second most populous country.
The monsoon is the main determinant of rural spending on all consumer goods as two-thirds of India's 1.2 billion people live in villages as well as directly affecting food prices.
"Grain supplies are unlikely to drop to a level that would trigger double-digit inflation," said P.K. Joshi, Director for South Asia of International Food Policy Research Institute.
Monsoon rains are vital because the farm sector accounts for 14 percent of the national economy and half of India's farmland lacks irrigation. A revival in the monsoon since late July eased food inflation to 5.15 percent in August from 8.43 percent in the previous month.
"A late surge in the monsoon has helped evade a widespread drought though the huge starting deficit in rainfall couldn't bring down the gap to a single digit level," said L.S. Rathore, director general of the India Meteorological Department.
The four-month long monsoon season ended with 12 percent below average rainfall, making it the worst in five years.
A shaky start to the season lead to a 43 percent shortfall in rain in the first month, but that deficit shrank to a tenth below average each in the two key planting months of July and August due to the late surge in the summer rains.
A delay in the retreat from the grain bowl northwest India had helped the monsoon show an eight percent surplus in September, boosting prospects of winter crops such as wheat and rapeseed, grown in irrigated areas where the rains filled up water levels in reservoirs.
Rains at the end of the summer are seen boosting 2014/15 rice yields after patchy rain during the first half and flash floods in the second half led India's farm ministry to forecast a 4 percent year-on-year drop in output to 88 million tonnes.
"This year's monsoon has escaped a drought from agricultural point of view but the poor first half will have a bearing on the summer harvests," said J.S. Sandhu, India's farm commissioner.
Sandhu sounded an optimistic note on overall food supplies for the current crop year to June as the delayed finish would benefit winter sown crops over the summer harvests.
A wet run in the monsoon also caused flash floods in host of states in north and eastern India including picturesque Kashmir. Floods in Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam and Odisha killed hundreds, and made thousands homeless.
The dry run in the first half forced two states in north India -- Haryana and Uttar Pradesh -- to declare droughts, and seek federal government subsidies on diesel to run pumps for irrigation.
(Editing by David Evans)
