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New Delhi / Bloomberg
India’s monsoon has finally arrived.
The annual rains reached the southern state of Kerala on Wednesday, Sunitha Devi, an official with the India Meteorological Department, said by phone from Pune. The normal onset date for the monsoon is June 1 and the agency had said Tuesday that it would probably cover Kerala by June 9.
India is counting on above-normal rainfall this year to help control food prices, boost farm output and ease a drinking water shortage caused by two years of below-average precipitation.
The monsoon accounts for more than 70 percent of annual rain and waters about half the crop land in the country, where more than 800 million people live in villages and depend on farming. Agriculture accounts for roughly 18 percent of India’s gross domestic product.
June-September rainfall is seen at 106 percent of a 50-year average, the weather office has predicted. That will be the highest rainfall since 1994, according to weather bureau data. Precipitation was 14 percent below average last year, preceded by a 12 percent shortfall in 2014, data from the bureau show. The onset over Kerala signals the arrival of monsoon over the Indian subcontinent and represents the beginning of the rainy season.
The delayed arrival this year had put some farmers on edge. Drought curbed production of crops including rice, corn, sugar cane and oilseeds last year, increasing the cost of food in Asia’s third-largest economy. Sugar output may drop to a seven-year low of 23.5 million tons in the year beginning October 1 due to dry conditions, according reports.
India’s central bank said this month that a strong monsoon, astute food management and expanded supply of goods and services were needed to offset upward inflationary pressures. Higher agricultural output may also be a political boon for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has sought to counter rising discontent in villages ahead of key state elections with a pledge to double farmer incomes by 2022.
The area planted with monsoon-sown food-grain crops is set to increase by 20 percent, boosting production to around 129 million tons to 130 million tons this year, according to SkymetWeather Services Pvt., a private forecaster. That compares with 124 million tons in 2015, according to farm ministry data. Soybean, peanut and pulses plantings may climb, while cotton area will probably decline marginally, the forecaster said.