India Rain Deficit to Narrow, Aiding Crop Sowing

By Thomas Kutty Abraham

July 16 (Bloomberg) -- India’s monsoon deficit will drop below 20 percent by end of this month as rains increase, easing a dry spell that’s dented sowing of crops in the world’s second- biggest producer of rice, wheat and sugar.

The shortfall for the season started June 1 narrowed to 27 percent as of yesterday from 45 percent last month, the India Meteorological Department, said. Falls were 6 percent more than the long-period average for the week ended July 15, the first weekly surplus this year, the weather office said.

Rains have intensified since July 8, helping allay fears of a drought undermining Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s efforts to push economic growth back to a 9 percent pace. A deficit of as much as 50 percent earlier this month in the northwest region, the nation’s grain bowl, has dimmed prospects for bigger crops of rice, oilseeds and sugar cane.

“The good news is that the current active phase of the monsoon has helped alleviate drought fears,” D. Sivananda Pai, a director at the weather bureau said in a phone interview from Pune today. “Most parts will continue to receive good rains, though the northwest remains a bit of a concern.”

The formation of a low-pressure weather system over the Bay of Bengal may bring more rain starting July 20, A.B. Mazumdar, deputy director general at the weather office, said today from Pune. The current spell across paddy, oilseeds and cane growing areas will persist for at least two days, he said.

India got 220.5 millimeters (8.68 inches) of rains between June 1 and July 15, compared with the 50-year average of 300.8 millimeters, the weather bureau said. Falls were deficient in 22 of the 36 weather divisions, down from 25 in the previous week.

Rice Crop

Area planted to rice in the past week has risen 76 percent from the previous week, Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said in New Delhi today. That compares with a 20 percent drop in crop area to 7.43 million hectares on July 10.

“Rains have improved in the last one week and there seems to be no shortage in sowing of paddy,” Pawar told reporters.

The monsoon is the main source of irrigation water for the nation’s 235 million farmers as more than half the crop land isn’t irrigated. Sowing begins in June and ends mostly by July.

An El Nino that’s forming over the Pacific Ocean may not impact the June-September rains, Pai said. The weather event, which occurs about every four to seven years, causes dry weather conditions in many Asian countries.

“By the time the El Nino phenomenon peaks, a better part of the monsoon would have been over,” he said. “It may impact the last leg of the rains in September.”

India got below normal rains in 15 of the 36 El Nino years it had in the 1875-2008 period, the weather office said June 24.

Showers this season may be below normal, or 93 percent of the long-period mean of 89 centimeters (35 inches), the bureau said last month. In April, it forecast rains to be near normal.

To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Kutty Abraham in Mumbai at tabraham4@bloomberg.net.