Rainfall drops to 6% below average

From being 5% higher than the long period average (LPA), rainfall has gone down to 6% below LPA in the last two weeks of August in India. While soil moisture and reservoir levels have risen during July and sowing is almost over, agricultural experts are concerned about the yield of some crops such as pulses and spices in case a prolonged dry spell adds to inflationary pressures.

"At the moment we are pretty much done with the sowing cycle and reservoir levels have also improved as rainfall was surplus in July except in the eastern region such as Bihar, West Bengal and eastern Uttar Pradesh," said Rahul Bajoria, head of EM Asia (ex-China), economics research, Barclays, adding that as we enter the El Nino phase, rainfall has become erratic, which could pose an upside risk to inflation.

As dry phase and temperatures rise in most parts of the country; some crops such as moong, urad, tur and spices could be affected by the increased stress, said Tanmay Kumar Deepak, head of research, Agriwatch, an agri research firm that works with over a million farmers across the country.

"The high temperature and dryness can bring the crops, especially pulses, under stress affecting their height and density, which could in turn affect the yield," he added. As it is, the area under pulses sown during this kharif season has gone down to 113.07 lakh hectares till August 11 this year from 122.77 lakh hectares last year.

Countrywide rainfall in the first half of August has been 35% below LPA with monsoon remaining weak throughout the period. While the rainfall over north western India is still 10% more than the LPA, the other three regions of east and northeast, central India and southern peninsula have a deficiency of 20%, 4% and 13% respectively.

On August 17, 66% of the subdivisional area in the country faced large deficiency and 14% witnessed deficiency of rainfall, only 9% of the area got normal rains. Around 6% of the area got no rains, according to IMD's data.