For the first time in three decades, India has “experienced back-to-back monsoon failures,” says The Indian Express. “The just-ended south-west monsoon season has registered an overall rainfall deficit of 14.3 percent relative to the ‘normal’ long period average for June-September, according to data from the India Meteorological Department.” Monsoon rainfall in 2014 was 11.9-percent below normal. Deficit monsoons are at least 10-percent below normal. Agrimoney said a monsoon shortfall of more than 10 percent “is classified as a severe drought.” Monsoons water summer crops, feed India’s rivers and are key to irrigation, which is important for crops sown in the winter.
“The brunt of the current drought has been borne by farmers and agricultural laborers, not consumers,” said the Express. “This, of course, has largely to do with the collapse in global prices of commodities, insulating consumers from any domestic supply shocks on account of poor monsoons. There hasn’t been any major price increases for most food items, barring pulses and onions. But for farmers, production setbacks on top of lower realizations – for everything from cotton, sugar and soyabean to maize, basmati rice and rubber – has translated into significant income losses.”
The weak monsoon was blamed on the El Niño weather pattern, which causes dry weather in the western Pacific, said Agrimoney. India is a major grower of cotton and rice and is the second-most populous nation on earth with 1.25 billion people, or nearly one-sixth of the world total.