India’s monsoon delivered normal rainfall in the past week, boosting prospects of higher farm output and lower inflation, and encouraging India to further relax curbs on rice exports.
Rainfall in the seven days to June 9 recovered to normal after an initial hiccup when Cyclone Phet hindered the advance of the monsoon, which irrigates 60 per cent of farms in the world’s leading consumer and producer of edible oils, sugar, wheat, rice and cotton, the weather office said.
Rainfall since June 1, the start of the four-month season, was 6 per cent below normal because of the cyclone in the first few days of the month, but the weather office was upbeat.
“We are happy with the monsoon progress. A decline in seasonal rainfall at this stage does not mean anything,” India Meteorological Department spokesman B.P. Yadav said.
Farm scientists said the timely onset of the monsoon on May 31 and normal rainfall in the past week augured well for farm output that dipped in 2009 as rains were the weakest since 1972.
“Production prospect for summer crops has brightened with the monsoon advance,” director of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, H.S. Gupta said. To boost summer-sown planting, the government on Thursday raised the price at which official agencies buy rice from farmers. “It’s a good incentive for farmers to grow more rice this summer,” Mr Gupta said. Monsoon, expected to be boosted by the favourable La Nina weather phenomenon, is likely to advance further into Maharashtra, where cane and cotton are grown, and corn-growing Karnataka in next two days, weather office said. —Reuters