NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's monsoon continued its early retreat last week with rains again below average, but key summer crops have already had ample downpours and should help to produce bumper harvests.
The Indian government is relying on that to help ease inflation and boost agricultural growth in one of the world's biggest food consumers and producers.
Rainfall was 25 percent below average in the week ending September 18 compared with a 37 percent shortage the previous week, the weather office's latest data showed on Thursday.
The monsoon, vital for the 55 percent of farmland in India that does not have irrigation, usually starts retreating from western Rajasthan state by mid-September. This year, it started to fall back from September 9.
Patches of heavy rains recently have prompted some fears of damage in vegetable crops in south, central and western India and stalled planting of onion, triggering hefty price rises that helped push food inflation to 18.8 percent in August, a three-year high.
(Reporting by Ratnajyoti Dutta; editing by Mayank Bhardwaj)
